Zara and her green peas.

This morning, my little girl, refused to get up from bed to go to school. Well, her teacher asked everyone in the class to bring green peas, and we didn’t have any green peas at home.

Well, on Thursday evening, she did called and said that she has to bring green peas to school, but I was busy at that time. My respond to her was, “Hmmm.” 

I didn’t remember about it at all until 8.30pm when she asked me for the green peas. Oooopsss..I totally forgot about it. She didn’t say anything about it and went to bed. I thought she would be okay, but I was wrong because the first thing she said when I woke her up, “Where the green peas? I don’t to go to school if I don’t have green peas.”

“Trouble,” I mumbled to myself. 

Luckily my father-in-law was kind enough to go and buy the green peas. Haha! He has to go two times to get the green peas. But because Zara is his favorite grandchildren, he didn’t mind.

First, he headed to the Seksyen 7 near the primary school, but on the way out, there was a lot of cars in front of the primary school. The school was preparing for the visit from Ministry of Education.

There were so many guests at the school, and this caused congestion to the road in front of the school. In fact, the shops around the place were also closed and no green peas. I then suggested that he buys from the groceries stores near the surau. 

Off he went to the grocery store and brought back the green peas. I thought my girl would go with his Atuk, but she didn’t want her grandfather. She wanted her mama to send her to school. Ughh! At that time, it was 8.15am already, and I was just getting ready to work.

Thinking that she was already late, I rushed her to school, but when I reached there, her classmates were all sitting outside waiting for the Minister. Not two minutes later, they minister and his officers arrived at the primary school. Did I see him? Heh! I only saw a black car passing by.

When I reached home today, I asked my girl where are the green peas. Her responds, “We going to plant the green peas on Monday, mama. When it grows, we can cook it later.”

Huh Zara dear! You only brought a few green peas. It would not be enough to cook it.

Salam.

Wonderful wonderful Abacus!

How many of you know what is abacus and how to use it? If you don’t know what is abacus, look at the picture there, and you can go to Wikipedia to find more about it.

My first exposure to abacus was ten years ago when Syafiq attended the Mental Arithmetic. Since the teacher gave him a lot of homework to do, I have to also learned how to use it. Furthermore, I had been trying to learn it since I was small when I saw the Chinese tauke used abacus to calculate my mom's groceries.

It is easy to use once you know the concept. But if you do not use it regularly, you will get rusty. That’s what happened to me. After eight years of not using the abacus, I have to learn it again. 

The new mathematic curriculum included abacus as part of its teaching tool. Every student must have abacus, and they must bring with them during mathematics class. I thought that it would be easy for me to use it again, but I was wrong.

When Zaki asked me to teach him using abacus, it took me a while to remember the rules. I have to dig deep into my memory to remember it. Alhamdulillah, I still remember how to use it. I can still remember how to do addition using abacus, but not subtraction. 

When he asked me to how to do subtraction using abacus tonight, I was stumped. I can’t remember how it was done. After few attempts, I gave up, and taught him the traditional way of doing subtraction.

I found that abacus has developed Syafiq’s mathematics skill. He is no great mathematicians, but when it comes to solving mathematics problem, he will get the answer correctly and fast. In fact, there were few times he preferred to use his fingers, as if he has the abacus with him, to calculate than using his calculator. It is much faster for him to get the answer. That's how wonderful abacus is.

Meantime, I have to brush up my abacus again, or else Zaki will have problems doing his homework. 

Alhamdulillah....

Z & Z love durian

I’m so happy that my little girl is enjoying her school life again. Three weeks before the school break, she refused to go to school. Every morning, I had a battle with her trying to get her to school.

She would get up and had her bath, but when I put on her school uniform, she would take it off. Or some times, she would runs out from the bathroom and quickly get dressed into shorts and T-shirts. Someday she would pretend to sleep even though I know she was awake.

She kept on giving one excuse after another, and I also rang up the school to find out what happened. It seems she was okay at school and no problem.

So after a long break, all of us talked to her. Syafiq, Amir, and Zaki promised her something if she goes to school. She agreed, but at Sunday night, she was in two minds. One moment she said okay, and the next moment she would be pleading to me that she doesn’t want to go.

On Monday, she tried to use the same tactics like before, but I told her if she didn’t go to school, she can lives with her grandparents in Seremban. After five minutes, she knocked on my door and said that she wanted to go, but with a condition that I send her to school.

When she said that, I quickly get ready before she changed her mind. Within 10 minutes, I was ready. We were 10 minutes late, and everyone was already in the classroom. Someone from her class shouted, “Zara!” and she knew that her classmate missed her. 

I walked her to the door and explained to the teacher why she didn’t come. When I looked inside, she was already playing with her best friend, a boy name Harry. Ah! She doesn’t mix well with the girls but is very good with the boys.

When I called her in the afternoon, she was very excited, and said the school was great, and she can’t wait to go.

Oh! I pray that she will continue to feel excited to go to school like before.

Why?

Today I have to go to my little girl’s school. I’m not sure what really happened, but she seems to lost her interest in school. It used to be a battle with Zaki early this year to get him to school, and now, it is Zara’s turn.

She started behaving this way since last month, and I did call the teacher to find out what happened. She said Zara was okay at school, and mixed well with other students. She didn’t give any problem to teachers or other students.

She didn’t go to school on Thursday and Friday last week. She used me as her excused for not going to school. Last Friday, I have to leave early, and she was still sleeping when I left. When she didn’t go on Monday, I already see the trend, but she promised me that today she will go.

But when she didn’t want to go to school today, I was quite mad. She was trying to bargain with me saying that she will go to school tomorrow, but I can’t accept it. The midyear exam is coming, and she already lost quite a number of days.

Together with my husband, we took her to school. When we reached there, she didn’t want to get out from the car. I have to coax her out. The teacher was already waiting at the gate. She held to my hand tightly when we entered the gate. I spoke to the teacher to find out what happened, and when the teacher took her hand, she refused to let me go. She started to cry.

“I have to be strong,” I said to myself and pried myself out from her hold. I quickly went into the car while the teacher took her into the classroom. 

As I had my breakfast, I wondered what really caused her to behave like this. Is it because she was tired of school? Or the current school is less fun than her previous school, or she has a problem with other students there.

I really don’t know because every time I asked, she will come out with different stories. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.

What can I say.....

It’s 30th April, and it means the last day to file in the income tax. Did I manage to do it in time? Yes, I did. Actually, mine was ready for a week, but I didn’t submit it because I can’t find the receipt on the computer that I purchased last year. Not sure where it was.

Since I can’t find it, I didn’t claim for it. What can I say except too bad. It’s a lesson to me to keep all my receipt in one place.

Today, must be not a good day for me because in the morning, I happily wore my T-Shirt inside out and sent Syafiq to his school.

He has an audition at school for teacher’s day, and I hope he will get through to the next round. Maybe Syafiq was nervous, that’s why he didn’t see my shirt. Then I went to Asam Pedas for breakfast. I wanted to eat Lempeng Pisang, but by the time we reached there, it’s all gone. What can I say? It is very popular with the crowd.

Since lempeng is not available, I happily went and chose other food. The funny thing is nobody looks at my inside out T-shirt. Maybe they are too polite to stare or say something.

Well when did I realize it? In front of my house door when Zaki pointed it to me and said, “Ibu you are wearing your t-shirt inside out.”

Me: “Got meh?” and looked at my t-shirt and laughed. The kids laughed too, and that’s when my husband said, “Havoc! This family is havoc.”

What can I say except to laugh at it.

So what does it mean? Is it a good or bad signed? Alicia, one of my friends said something good will happened. But to me, it was a result of dressing in the dark

Sekian. Salam.

When the little girl scared of the teacher.

Today I didn’t go to work because of my back pain. It has been giving me problem, on and off. I felt the pain yesterday, but I ignored it. I thought that when I reached home I could rest, and it would be okay. Unfortunately, I didn't get my rest, and as a result, it got worse. 

I thought I could get some rest today, but my two young kids have a different idea. They camped in my room. Zaki who is in the afternoon session was around in the morning while Zara didn’t go to school today because she was scared of her teacher.

I really don’t understand. How can a teacher invoke this feeling among the small kids? If Zara in primary school, I do understand the teacher behavior because the teacher has 40 students to take care in one class. But this is kindergarten. Maximum in a class is fifteen students only.

I know, being a kindergarten teacher is more challenging than school teacher. But if you want to be a kindergarten teacher, you have to make sure you have the right qualification. The kindergarten teachers need to go for proper training such as children psychology class else how do they know how to handle young children especially the hyperactive and naughty kids. And the most important requirement is they must like children. If not they will be torturing the young kids.

I really hope the teacher will change after I talked to her this morning, but the fear she invoked on Zara will take some time for Zara to get over it. Pity to see for someone who loves school so much is now scared of going to school.

It broke my heart to see her went through this. Yesterday she was hiding in my wardrobe crying. When I saw her hiding, I knew the problem is bigger than I thought. When I asked her, she didn’t say much except someone pulled her hair. I hugged her and told her that she didn’t have to go to school yesterday. I thought the drama is over, but I was wrong.

Today, she cried again. After much persuasion, finally she told me that she is scared of her teacher. No matter what I said, she refused to go to school. Since I was also in pain, I told her that it is okay for her not to go today, but tomorrow she has to go. I also told her that I would call the teacher and find out what happened. She looked happy when I said that, and she promised me, that she would go tomorrow.

I just hope that she will keep to her promise. I don’t want an early morning drama tomorrow and spoil my Friday.

The Day I Almost Get Sacked From School

When I was in school, I was very active in sports and represented my schools in few sports. I can say that I was the top three sprinters and represented my school in hockey, badminton and netball. As I progress throughout my school years, I cut down on my activities and this invited the wrath of my netball teacher.

When I was in form 3, I decided to cut down on my activities knowingly that I have to sit for the major exam at the end of the year. In fact, I just wanted to train for 100m and 200m and the 4x100m and decided not to turn up for hockey, badminton and the netball training.

Besides me, there was another girl who also skipped netball and hockey. Somehow, somebody has spread a rumor to the netball teacher and said that if she wanted us in the netball team, she has to come and beg us to come for training.

Both of us were called by her. We were puzzled why and headed to the teacher’s room but she was not there. She was in Form 3B class and the Form 3B class was our rival whether in sports or academic. We were from Form 3A and we wondered why we were called to see her in Form 3B.

We politely knocked on the door and walked into the class full of students and before we can ask her, she shouted at both of us. We were shocked and the one thing I still remember until today was when she said, “If I have a power to sack you from the school, I would do so.” She kept on scolding us and we didn’t utter a single word because we didn’t know what caused all the attack.

After she dismissed us, both of us when to the girl’s toilet and cried. Our classmates saw us and came and asked what happened and when they knew about it, they were shocked too. After we have calm down, both of us decided to take revenge against her.

The next morning, we turned up for hockey and badminton training. We knew that if we attended the training, we will get back into the team. True enough, the hockey coach was so happy and informed the girls that we will played at our usual position. I pity the girl who has faithfully attended the training and has to let go the position to me.

Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you that the netball coach was also my English teacher and for almost 4 months, I and my friend were not hassled by her. We still do our homework but she never calls us in the class. It was heaven for four months for both of us.

I’m not sure but at the end, maybe she realized that we didn’t say it, she softened towards us but it was too late to amend the bridge. After the exam, we went to a different school and I never saw her again and I continued to play hockey and totally dislike netball after that episode.

And my parents never know about this episode too or else my late father will definitely go the school and demand for an explanation.

Okay…gotta go..Salam.

My son and his fear of school.

My third son, Zaki, has problem going to the Agama school. He has not attended the school since 25th January. I have been asking him why but he will not tell me anything. He will just sit there staring at me. 


Yesterday morning, I lost my temper with him. I coaxed him, begged him, berated at him, whacked him, he still not budge from his bed. I gave up and finally I just ignored him. Being ignored works as it is most painful to him and being very closed to me he felt that I don't love him anymore.


Last night, when I reached home, he proudly said that he attended the afternoon session and he has homework. We sat down together and I went through his school work with him. He also promised that he will go to the morning school today with a condition that I send him to school. 


I further probed him last night, why he didn't want to go to school. He said he scared of the teacher. "Okay,"  I said. "I will talk to your teacher tomorrow." Do you know what he said? "Don't, ibu." He wanted to preserve his cool and macho look, I guess.


I just nodded my head and this morning, as promised, he went to school. When we reached the school, he went into the class and sit quietly at the back row. Since I need to pay for the school's fees too, and the teacher in-charge was late, it gave me the opportunity to observe the class and him. Well everyone sit quietly doing their work.


As I writing my check, I told the teacher my son has problem going to school because of the teacher. To my surprised, my son was not the only one scared of the teacher. There are other students who have the same problem. But the headmistress assured me that the teacher was replaced with a different teacher. The new teacher is more suitable to teach the year one student.


I also found out that the school also has a programme where I can subscribes to food package and they will provide food during recess. I like this program because my son still doesn't know the value of money.


Before I left him, I introduce him to the teacher and told him to behave in the class. He just nodded and looked sad when I said good-bye to him. I pray that he will like the new teacher and enjoy his lesson.