Such school life!!

Sitting in the carpark waiting for che-che.

I see primary kids leaving the school. They look big so could be P6s. I saw girls streaming into the school, either for CCA or classes, after the papers are over.

Such school life!!

Timeline

First day of school holiday

First GCE O’ Level Paper 📝 - Chinese

First time after 3+ years, this encouragement card goes on the table. She used to keep it in her drawer immediately in the morning, now she left it on the dining table and made her way out of the house. It’s 6.50am now; she needs to be in school by 7.20am. 

I was the one who sent her to school that time (P6) together with her friend who lives in Sengkang, making a stop at the temple opposite her house to pray every morning before every paper. Now daddy sends her to school, without making the trip to the temple coz will be making a roundabout trip. I might go abit later before sending lil’ one for her workshop at 9.30am in Marine Parade.

Her breakfast this morning with her usual vitamins & a card. Haha! A bit burnt the bread. I don't mean to ask her to "burn" her papers.

 

My home the National Geographic

My goodness! Ever since I’ve moved here, I’ve seen countless of insects. Weird ones too!

Let me start from the very beginning.

>  I had more roach intruders than in my previous home of 13yrs. Tho’ the last time I had one small one was months months ago.

> I scream “lizard!!” more than ever. Tho’ lizzie are friends but I hate the idea of having another family prying into my privacy. It’s a conflicting emotion when I see lizard. If I don’t see it, it could be feasting on whatever crawlies came into our house unspotted. If I see it, means there’s no buffet left and they’re looking for food outside or .... perhaps hinting to me “yo woman. I smell food in your house.” Whatever it is, I will try to get rid whenever I see one. As I’m speaking, there’s one lurking somewhere in che-che’s room or maybe caught between window and mosquito netting. Tried to get rid of it, but it went missing after I came back with my peppermint spray. Why is it so difficult to remove lizard? Why no spray to kill them?  

> I have housefly flying into my house when I’ve done heavy cooking and not yet cleaned the kitchen and air out the kitchen. (Rosemary oil to do the last cleanup after the scrubbings. And a fan positioned into the kitchen with sliding windows to dining area closed to blow out the stale air into the opened up yard area. It's so troublesome! That's why sometimes I really hate to cook.) 

> For the past months, I’ve been cursing at the big black ants 🐜 taking my house as their holiday chalet. 

> With plants outside the PES, needless to say the little creatures need food too. I’ve chopped off leaves with slight sight of aphids. I’ve killed countless of lime caterpillars in my I thought it was some chinese orange plant. Though last week lil’ one decided she wanted some pets. Haha! Got 6 of them. One is in chrysalis stage.
http://butterflycircle.blogspot.sg/2011/11/life-history-of-lime-butterfly-v20.html?m=1

> I’ve seen the weirdest disgusting things till I found out they were earwigs in the yard area. I found the best solution for intrusion  - covering the drain covers with sticky tapes - that reduced the number of crawlies I vacuumed up or killed.

> Late last week, saw and caught one big insect, which I found out later is the weaver ant queen. It was walking real slowly and reckoned injured coz otherwise it wouldn’t be so easy to catch it (not with my hands). The Queen! I got the Queen! And with the Queen, I bet there must be a nest somewhere with the plants outside my compound. When I caught it into a container, I managed to catch 2 other big black ants 🐜 that sneakily came in from the PES. There were 3 of them in the container and strangely they minded their own business which I thought that perhaps they’re not related. Coincidently, the next day someone posted in Urban Farmers FB page about this and that’s how I know it’s the Weaver ant queen. Best solution to get rid of ants is to get rid of the Queen 👑 . 

Oh great! What an adventure I’ve had so far without venturing through amazon-y 🌳. While I do not want to have chemical laden insecticide in my house, I guess I have no choice but to go down to the pest buster shop one day. I really need to get rid of the irritating black 🐜. 

Oh! Heard there were sightings of snakes and rats and monitor lizard in our compound before. Scary isn’t it? Worry snake come into the house ; worry snake gets into the sewage and gives us a nice surprise to our butt when we 💩 poo. 

The last time we ....

spent some time together without stress Okay, I’m joking on the “without stress” part coz Che-che’s Chinese O’levels Paper is on 28th May (9 days time) and lil’ one is ehh....quite behind her revision. I feel the urgency was in December. 

Our Saturdays routine is usually just me bringing lil’ one for her tuition back at Parkway at noon after her first tuition in the morning at Punggol. Che-Che follows me sometimes but if the man is in town, he’d be at home. After tuition ends at 4pm, we go back home with packed dinner. 

Today, the man decided to bring the girls for a movie after lil’ one’s tuition. It’s a welcome change that Parkway has a cinema after all these years!

We watched a movie together after so many many months later. Or maybe it was a year ago?

So, when will we ever go back to the carefree days of going out and relaxing with no worries about exams; school homeworks piling up at home? Sigh..... this is the thing that our children go through now. We used to be so carefree when we were of schooling age. 

#ourataseducationsystem# 

Difficult

It’s not easy planning a detailed intensive revision schedule for lil’ one for June holidays. Everytime I look at the calendar and the things she needs to cover for each subjects, I get so fused up and end up doing something else instead. Hmm....like for example —- THIS! I’m blogging instead.

You might think “it’s easy what, just plan. What’s so difficult?”

Yes, indeed it looked easy as I printed out the calendar and list down the things she needs to revise. That’s just the easiest part - REALLY!

A few factors to consider.

1) She needs to be back in school for supplementary classes (3x)

2) TLL - her science tuition centre organised additional (2x)

3) Student Leadership Camp - for the school leaders? (2x) haven't received anything from school yet

4) Her on-going tuitions

I tried not to have any holiday PSLE booster though I think many others are stepping up signing for courses for the last minute dash to PSLE. I'm doing the opposite, I used to like to sign them up for classes during the school hols but now every seconds; minutes is so precious to me. 

BUT my dear girl insisted to be signed up for Booster class for Chinese.  I'm like “chinese is your forte. What the heck you’re going for chinese? Go for other subjects lah!”

It’s like plan also must do right?  Cannot plan then cannot finish, keep pushing back. Which happens all the time!! So all the planned work to be covered have to be realistic. Is she able to cover 100 pages of work when she had already spent half the day in school? Not possible. 

真是的！我迫不期待 PSLE is over and done with.

If I had a million dollars .......

what will I buy?

LAVISH WANTS

A better telescope with equatorial mount

A 400mm f/2.8 lens

A DSLR camera upgrade

My long time wish of owning Stagea electone organ

Hermes bag

SELFISH ME COMES FIRST

A slimming programme

Botox treatment

DOMESTIC WANTS

The perhaps ridiculous but sounds real tempting Thermomix?

PRACTICAL ASSETS

A condo under my name for rental purposes 

Continue dreaming 

Tulips

Since the cherry blossoms made way for Tulips on 13th April, I have been to Flower Dome 3 times to date. Too many times; too free? On the contrary no. When I need that well deserved break from all the shit and feeling so bloody depressed, I'll declare no housework for the first half of the day and just immerse myself to the flowers. Beautiful, quiet. Somehow it helps to cheer me up, boost up my mood and lessen my iritability before dealing with more shit. 

13th April (Fri)

Stepped into the conservatory at 9am sharp. 

The early risers are mainly the pros. They bring their tripod with them, most of them with just one lens (unlike me. I lugged both lens out and was changing it all the time like one stupid joker) 

*Please bear with the photos sequencing in this post. Seemed to have jumbled up as I loaded the pics here and I have problem editing the html so I will leave it as it is. 

There were around 4 cherry blossoms trees left in the conservatory which surprised me. I thought they'd remove all the trees but I'm happy! Coz/ I never tire from looking at the blossoms.

As it was brought in just a day ago, the tulips are mostly closed, with some peeking at their new environment. 

 Fushcias. I love the ballerinas, but they're not easy flowers to care.

 Look at the beautiful colours. Can they be here for a longer period of time?  

 Muscari - blue, urn-shaped flowers resembling bunches of grapes in the spring.

 Some kind of lavender. No scent at all. 

 Not sure what colour are the tulips as they remain tightly closed. Too shy?  

Che-che's favourite Daisy (Commonly called Shasta Daisy or scientifically read with a mouthful Leucanthemum x superbum)

"I'm taller than you"

 Adenium. How is it they can flower so nice here? And mine always don't seem to survive?

 Amaryllis

The crowds came in at 10. So basically I had one hour of "taking my time to appreciate the flowers". Snapping the pictures do take some time. At least I have that quiet moment by myself without anyone photo-bombing me with their outstretched hands or legs 

 Perspiring? 

For the record, I took 541 shots!! Every picture is nice (coz the models are pretty) and it's really difficult to put all the pictures in here.

18th April (Wed) - A last minute trip down with the girls. Didn't bring my bulky camera so have to make do with my lousy iphone. Oh! Che-che took with her iPhone 8 and the outcome are so much better. I took the chance and joined as a member, so I can come and go whenever I need to.   

The boxed displays change position? Or did they plant in new ones?    

 This is different! They didn't have any flowers 5 days ago in this 'fountain'. I remember at that time I saw two plastic boxes hidden in one corner with some hyacinth and joked with a staff nearby "they couldn't plant it in in time for the 9am opening". But really thankful for the staffs to put in the night work to let us enjoy the flowers.   

 A picture of the girls

10th May (Thu) - it's been almost a month since I went. Things had been really hectic, either one of them have exam and I make more trips to and fro Marine Parade and home as some days che-che returns home after her papers at 9+, 10+ these 2 weeks.  Took a morning break (and slogged later in the afternoon)

Love the outcome of these pictures. DSLR really gives sharp and vibrant colours.

"A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower."

by Marianne Williamson

Daisies "Sedia" - vying for the sunlight

Pollen grains on a white lily

See the cutesy aphid? But if this is on my plant, it will DIE!

I'm relatively pleased with the pictures I took today, definitely not as much as the first time but more than the second time. I took the advice of a pro photographer I met on 13th April "taking pictures of what I really want", so I brought only the 70-250mm lens with me.