Sherilyn's Graduation From Primary School

Today is the graduation day for Primary 6 students at Drama Queen's school.  It felt like it was only just recently that I attended Alycia's graduation but that was exactly 2 years ago.   Before I even realize it, soon it will be Cass' turn 3 years from today. Time really flies. I can't wait to attend my daughters' university graduation. How. I. Wish.!!  When will the day come?

On stage, the graduating pupils had to go through a 'tea ceremony' where each of them held a disposable paper cup with tea to serve all their teachers. The school planned to have a 'students massage parents' session too but they had to scrap this off at the eleventh hour due to time constraint.  Thank God it's scrapped off, else it would truly be awkward!   Guess this is the newest trend on graduation ceremony from SJKC schools?  I see many schools catching on to this trend.

Tea ceremony is a typical Chinese devout way to express their gratitude to parents or the elders for being raised well.




After the tea ceremony, the parents were asked to go up the stage to look for their child, congratulate and hug the child, followed by photography.  I saw some teary eyed and emotionally overwhelmed students and parents.





One with her team mates in the Gleneagles inter-school Junior Care Search Champion competition recently.  Oops, looks like someone's little brother photo-bombed the photo!


One with B, Drama Queen's bff since they were in nursery when they were both three.  Too bad they will be separated when they start their new chapter in life in January 2018. Thankfully B lives in the same neighborhood as us and it would be easy for her and Drama Queen to meet-up.



Cass and Alycia came to cheer on Drama Queen. As usual, the big girl is anti-photography with me. She hates it that her pix are in my blogs 😭  How I miss  Alycia's early growing up years when she was ever ready to give me her sweet dimpled smile for the camera. I miss that Alycia so much 😢



Tomorrow marks another 'Today In History' event for Drama Queen.  The UPSR results will be OUT, jeng jeng jeng!!!!

Rare Gem Of A Teacher

On the first day of school, Sherilyn's class teacher gave this inexpensive but meaningful and utterly thoughtful gift to all the students in the class.





I suppose this personalized note with words of encouragement is the teacher's welcome gift.  It's printed on a piece of thick Disney paper.  I think it's printed with love from the heart, with a burning passion in teaching. If you were a teacher, would you care to print over 40 copies of such  notes and spend over RM40?

This is the first time I see a teacher giving a welcome gift to her students on the first day of school and I am very impressed.

In addition, I was told by Sherilyn that her teacher would encourage her  students to drink at least 1 liter of water in school. She would check the students' water tumblers each day. She also told the students to mark their lunch boxes and water tumblers with names. Such a caring teacher is indeed a rare gem, what more one from a military style stringent Chinese  school. Bless the teacher's heart indeed!

All About The Drama Queen

The drama queen has proven her prowess again.  Early this year, she told me with resolute that she would strive to get to the top three in the Program Nilam (Nilam Reading Program) carried out in her school.  NILAM is an intensive reading program planned for all pupils in public schools, carried out by the MoE.

To help her reach her goal easier, she volunteered to be a school librarian.  She was elected and has been a librarian for a year now.  She would go to the library every day to read and then to fill out the Program Nilam book.  Fast forward ten months later.  She came home one day and announced that she has emerged the third prize winner in the Program Nilam - state level!  There was a letter from the MoE to the school and she was given a copy of the letter.  Last week, her teacher brought her  to another school to receive her reward, which was RM50 cash!

Last Friday, the drama queen told me nonchalantly that she would be taking part in a Malay story telling competition to be held in school on Tuesday this week.  I was shocked!  For someone whose BM language is not strong, how could she be taking part in a story telling competition?!  But her weakness is not a problem to her.  I asked her if she was nervous and she said "NO?  For what?!"

The drama queen is a sucker for taking part in competitions.  Whether she is good enough for the competition is besides the point.  She loves taking part for the sake of being on stage and facing the crowd!  Winning would be a bonus.   I wish I had her guts and chutzpah.  Since pre-school, she has taken part in numerous competitions from singing to talent time, drawing, reading, Math (and she is not even very good in Math!) and her love being story-telling.

Since last night, the drama queen has been reciting a short story in BM.  She asked me for suggestions in perfecting her introduction.  I wish her the very best and though I know she would not come up tops, I am nevertheless very proud of her initiative, courage and determination.  She is indeed a drama queen and I hope that some day, her dream of being a real drama queen or singer will be realized :D

Life at home will never ever be a bore with a real life drama queen living with you.  And you know what?  Today a scary drama in real life happened and it was because of the drama queen.  It scared the shit out of me.  I will tell you this drama in my next post, so stay tuned! ;)

Shoes That Were Swapped

Further to my earlier post on 'What Would You Do If You Were Me?', I had a 'brainstorming' session with Sherilyn and Alycia over this issue and what I found out was that this problem happens quite frequently after the library period.  Though every student is given a number card to claim their shoes when they leave the library, this system seems to have some flaws as shoes are still swapped and missing. And though the principal has advised the students to write their names on their shoes, many students are still not doing it. For some of the students who obediently write their names, the ink had  faded after several washes, like in the case of Sherilyn.

Sherilyn told me that after she lost her shoes, she reported the matter to her class teacher, who only nodded her head to acknowledge the problem but did not try to help her! I have met her class teacher once during the parents-teachers day in June when I collected her report card. The teacher seems to me like a passive
teacher and she is in her early twenties. She also seems to be the reticent type and did not tell us much about Sherilyn's progress in class. A good teacher (like Alycia's class teacher) would tell us about our child's strengths, weaknesses and what areas she/he has to improve on and how she/he can improve in the weak areas.  This could be because the hubs and I could not speak in Mandarin while the teacher is not good in her English language, thus the lack of communication.

Anyway, I told Sherilyn to speak to the teacher in charged of the library to seek her help but Alycia and Sherilyn told me that it is useless as the library teacher did not manage to help other 'victims' to locate their shoes in the past. I kept urging Sherilyn to bring the wrong shoes back to school since they are not hers and to seek the library teacher's help to find hers but she was dogged reluctant to do so reason being the teacher in charged of the library was not around at that time of the incident and her name written in marker pen, has faded from her shoes.

I guess I have to close the case and write off her shoes.  As a preventive measure, I have asked Sherilyn to place a very noticeable identification on her shoes each time she removes her shoes in school, on top of having her name written on both sides of her shoes.  I suggested to her that she either places her shoes into a plastic bag (this was what tourists were asked to do at one of the museums that we visited recently in Malacca) or places a small name card onto each side of the shoes but she said that this would make her look very stupid *roll eyes*   Instead, she came out with the idea of sticking her cartoon name sticker onto her shoes each time she removes her shoes in school. She will then pull out the two name stickers from the shoes after she wears them back and will stick them back onto the plastic cover of her mini note pad which she puts in her pinafore pocket.  I sure hopes that this method will prevent other pupils from wearing her shoes again.

Fruits For Art

Rascal #2's art teacher in school told the class that there will be a session on drawing and painting of fruits.  Every pupil was to bring their own fruits to school. So I drove her to the nearby mini market and asked her to choose the fruits that she'd like to draw. As expected, this rascal who likes to do extraordinary things chose only exotic fruits, not to mention expensive ones!  She wanted to choose a bunch of grapes which cost over RM10 and  mangoes which are expensive too. I said NO! I knew that when the fruits returned home after the painting session, they would surely be inedible anymore with dents and splashes of paints on them.

So I bought her a pineapple (RM5.90) and a red dragon fruit (RM4) as these are not the run-of-the-mill apples and oranges and I think it would be fun to draw them.  She had a great time drawing and painting the exotic fruits in school and thankfully the fruits were still in good shape when she brought them home.  The red dragon fruit had dents every where though, of which I immediately cut it up for her to eat.  And the pineapple had splashes of pink paint on it but thankfully no dents or holes and can still be cut up to be eaten :D

Of Lunch Bags And School Canteen

Rascal #2 has an appetite as big as a horse! She eats more than rascal #1 and even me. Almost everyday, I pack 3 - 4 slices of bread with homemade kaya (coconut jam) into her lunch box and yet, she has been telling me that she is still hungry during recess. On most days, she will still buy something else from the school canteen. I suspect she is sharing her food with her buddies, hence she does not have enough food to eat, knowing this little social butterly of mine.

Here, I have packed 2 thick slices of homemade pandan chiffon cake, 3 pieces of Tiger Susu biscuits and 1 packet of chocolate flavored milk into her lunch bag. Yet, this rascal came home and told me that she was still hungry and spent RM1 to buy fried rice. RM1 fried rice? That cheap!?  I can imagine that the fried rice is heavily flavored with MSG to 'lure' kids to keep buying them. My girls love the RM1 fried rice and RM1 maggie mee (fried instant noodles) sold in their school canteen. Sometimes they buy nuggets too. And I wonder why their school is still allowing the sale of fried nuggets and sausages when I had read from the recent newspapers that the Health Ministry is banning the sale of such junks in school canteens!?