Sunday, December 7, 2008

The 2nd half of the week

Wednesday
I am so relieved! Her FSS is over. I was so worried that she'd not do well.


FSS stands for Fundamental Skills Survey - students completing the 2nd year of JMC have to take this to confirm the achievements that they've achieved (listening, singing, keyboard/piano playing, reading and creating) for the past 2 years.

The song she chose was Lullaby Of Stars. I didn't like that song but she wanted to sing, what can I say? Usually during class practice, she'd start laughing; trying to dig her nose; slouch etc.... all the things that would irritate not only me but her teacher as well. Then her voice trails off softer and softer each time.
I had to remind her over and over again "this is an exam (scare her off), you have to do properly otherwise you'd end up being stuck in this class while your friends proceed to the next level. You have a nice voice, you have a loud voice too. Project your voice out and stand straight. What's your spine for?" Nag and nag and nag for 2 whole days, she finally sang out loud and didn't fidget much (I think) - I dare not look at her; kept looking at the book infront of me just incase she bursts out laughing. Even S was so pleased........so she did well.


The children are asked to choose two songs to play, she chose Little Red Shoes and Lavender's Blue. Must admit it took alot of screaming (from me) for her Little Red Shoes, and finally she managed to play the 'staccato's well. I didn't have to worry much about Lavender's Blue. I didn't have to scream at her infact I was surprised that she could do this song well, it's a waltz song (3 beat), so her left hand has to play the rhythm. I only asked her to do the proper touches properly such that she's playing a "happy song".


The improvisation piece on The Dove, she played well on normal days practice but today she had to quicken the tempo each time/bar.... I had to sit in and I almost fainted!! I had to hold back my eyes before they popped out.
She did her reading well, solfege - teacher helped her with the easy one. Hee!
As I left the room, the examiner said "she did well, and you've got a very active girl. Don't worry she did well..." Probably she thought I was about to strangle her for increasing her tempo for The Dove song. Whatever it is, I think she did her best and it's a great improvement (definitely) for her singing. She needs her break for this week, I need my break too. I'll ask her to practice piano on Monday (8th)
******************************************************************
She collected her class photo and individual photos today.
When I saw her photo, I asked her "why didn't you smile?" She kept quiet, I recalled hubby told her the night before the photoshoot "don't open your mouth to smile, don't show your bor-geh teeth", my assurance to her didn't help at that time.


Got back home and showed him the photos and then put the blame on him. He pushed the blame on the photographer "the photographer is lousy, dunno how to take photos. This kind of smile can take photos meh?" I sided the photographer of course "how would he know that this is not how she normally smiles?" Funny huh? Then I decided to take my graduation photo. I burst out laughing "haha! I smiled the same way too!" Thursday
Body started to ache from the gym-ing the day before.
I spent the whole day making the "books" for speed-reading. Also tried to do some housekeeping in my lappie. But my side table is still messy...I can't seem to finish what I need to do. Too many things to prepare.
Now, she needs to help me finish her English and Chinese assessment book for this year and I'll start the next year with new books. Apparently she's taking even longer time to do coz' she's been playing and playing. And I can't supervise her much coz' I'm multi-tasking + mei-mei wants the mummy.

Evening time, Pine Garden sent my cake over. The children were happy and asked to sing the birthday song. Haha! Wait till they eat the cake.It's going to be Happy Hour for them.
Friday
After mei-mei's class, brought her to PS. Needed to get them a Lego base board for them to put their small figurines.

My trip was less than 2 hours and I was totally exhausted halfway through it!! Very tiring to care for that girl, especially when I can't bring out a stroller (in the first place can't put in a stroller) to strap her in. And she's very active, an example of me trying to look for something at one spot, I had to run after her so many times and pull her back to me; runs off again; the cycle continues for at least 4 times then she suddenly stays with you but starts to swing herself at a metal bar......... Argh! And then she decides it's no longer fun, she walks a few steps from you and starts sweeping the things onto the floor.
rolleye smileys No joke! Not that I don't want to bring her out gai-gai, to have some bonding time together but she's forcing me to leave her at home. I can't be bringing KZ out with me all the time too coz' I need her to finish the housework. And then when she sees me going out, she cries "I want mummy........." makes me sad.

Saturday

Had to clean the grouts in our living room. Seems a little difficult to remove it now. Need to get the house cleaned before CNY. I think our constant cleaning has lead to some corrosion, so it's the cement layer now?? Worst come to worst, we'd have to paint it over.

Did some plaster for che-che, she's been asking me to prepare the figurines for her to paint. She received this from FnR as a present.
Our room's aircon hasn't been working well lately, take a long time to cool the room. So we asked the aircon man to come down in the late morning. Turned out he mentioned something about the Compressor gas leak etc.... at first I thought he was trying to con us, tell us this and then try to find more fault, make us pay more $ etc.... you know that kind of thing. So I thought probably the guy who came the last time didn't close back our compressor coz' we had the compressor washed. Idiot!
There's nothing he could do, we either change the compressor or change all the aircons in our house - which I felt is a waste coz' we hardly use the other 2 rooms' aircons.


We brought che-che for her class in the evening and we thronged out of the school to HM. Dropped by Harvey Norman to check out on the aircons and it does sound logical to get the whole new set of aircon as the compressor would costs almost half of a new set. But my only worry is that it'll get in the way of our cabinets and does it mean we'd have to tear down the cabinets etc..? And then hubby had to say "the workmanship is not good.." yah, like I always say he's called Mr Lai - always blaming others when something happens. In a soft but not that entirely soft voice that he can't hear me "yah.... during renovations, you left everything to me. Now you're blaming me." Infact I used to think that our aircon trunking is done nicely until I went to J's house and saw that it's possible to hide everything........and K, the guy who did my aircon said it can only be done this way -which is what he did to my place.
Anyway, they will send a man down to assess if it's possible to use back the same trunking. We reserved our set.
Hopefully we do everything by this year, so I will have to see if the playdate for the children will go through or not.
Tentatively, I'm looking at 23rd to do a Xmas lunch with the children in Ros' Schoolhouse and Mel. I can't confirm anything yet will let you gals know soonest, k?

Picked che-che up from class. And she totally ignored me when I looked into the window. She seemed angry. Hee! She had expected us to stay to wait for her outside her school but we didn't. After her class, her teacher told me that she bursts out crying for no reasons and she refused to tell the reason when they asked her. Goash! Can't believe her ~ a 6 yr-old girl behaving like a 2 yr-old. Even mei-mei is more mature than she is! I bumped into her Hanyu Pinyin teacher and asked about her progress in class. She commented that she doesn't seem to like to mix with the other children in her class, probably coz' she sees them once a week. But it'll be good if she mixes with them and interact with them. She likes to sit one corner not with the classmates but she's listening to what's going on around in class. She does her work, she knows her work except for her social skills. Infact, the Progress Report from her teacher also said that. Hmm........


As we turn in for the night, I asked hubby if it's alright to turn on the aircon. He said "no problem", half the time I was worried if the aircon will explode while we're sleeping.


Sunday
Received parcel #3 out of 5. Hubby said he wanted to bring the children out for a movie. I thought che-che had been wanting to watch Madagascar 2 but she said she wanted to go down town. Ok, she better not bug me to bring her to the movies then! Oh! There was a Cacao Show in Centrepoint which is a great delight for me. The children were awed by the Tallest Sculpture, wanting to eat the chocolate. Shan't bore you with what we did, photos to share. In the night, now......as hubby is snoring away. The aircon stopped by itself twice. I turned off the aircon, opened the windows. Thank goodness it's the end of the year where the weather is cooling. I think we have to hurry the guy to fix the aircon soon.

No comments: