Educational & Emotional Support

I am much relieved now that Juliane has successfully graduated from primary school and will be starting Secondary 1 in ten days' time. 
Now that both my girls are in secondary schools, I feel that my job is done for the primary education part of their learning journey. :) The next challenge for me is how to support them educationally and emotionally in their secondary school life. 

Respite from PSLE

Making use of the weekend in between the PSLE papers, we three head down to have a little pampering of sorts, if you count, having a haircut as pampering lol. 

After our haircut at a neighbourhood shop, Marieann refused to take the photo

My "straight" hair, wondering how long it would last before the natural curls come back

Semestral Assessment 1

Before I know it, the examinations are over for the girls. 
For this examination period, I figured it's time for them to take ownership of their own learning. I still do the nagging but I no longer sit with them when they are studying or revising. 
We'll see how it goes.

My Mother is on Facebook II

It feels really strange to have my mother on Facebook. I am someone who prefer to have my own space when needed and I treat Facebook as such a space that I can retreat to at times. As such, even though my daughters are also on Facebook, I have never requested for them to add me as their friends. I want to respect their space. However, when they requested to be my friend, I did not add them either haha. I needed my space from them! :P 

"Under One Roof" SCGS Family Carnival

It's a family outing for my girls and I, attending the SCGS Family Carnival. However, upon reaching SCGS at 9:45am, my girls abandoned me as they went off with their friends. 

Marieann as she went off with her friend

With Juliane before she ran off with her friends too

It's ok, I met several of my former SCGS colleagues. ALWAYS a blast catching up with them! They never fail to make me miss my teaching days. :)

Juliane is horrified that I took a photo with Mrs Lim, her form teacher haha

Marieann, her friend, Mun Ling with Ms Koh, their P6 form teacher

I also met some of my classmates and my former students, Yvette and Michelle who are both teaching in SCGS!

My 1998 4P student, Yvette

I taught Michell when I was doing long term relief teaching in SCGS

What's carnival without buying home goodies! Hahaha

We really enjoyed ourselves, catching with friends. 
Once an SC girl, always an SC girl! :)

Life's Simple Pleasures 2016

After a stressful week, there's nothing more pleasurable than spending some quality time with my daughters! My girls and I started with having Korean desserts, Bingsu at Orchard Central, together with Brenda, Marieann's classmate.

Mango Bingsu and Green Tea Bingsu

After the indulgent Bingsu, we went shopping or rather I followed the girls while they shopped at Somerset 313, and Scape. 

Scape Marketplace

We had an early dinner at Astons. Brenda went home soon after while we ended off the day with another Korean dessert, Teh Gah Dai ice cream from Honey Creme before making our way home too. :)  

Queuing for a table at Astons

Salmon Spaghetti 

Teriyaki Chicken

Pork 

Enjoying Teh Gah Dai ice cream

My feet are really tired from following my girls around but the time spent with my girls and the memories are priceless! :)

Week 2

It's the start of Week 2. Schools will be trying out the time-tables and making sure nothing clashes. 

Week 1 Down

Week 1 is over. Everything went well. Phew. :)
Another 39 weeks to go. 

Pet Time?

My daughters have been pestering me to adopt a cat or a kitten as a pet for the longest time. I know and experienced first hand the benefits of having a pet, having had two dogs and a cat as pets before. However, we are faced with the following challenges, starting with the simplest to the most difficult:
1. we are living on a high floor but not a problem, can get invisible grille for the windows.
2. the flat is full of breakable stuff, including my mother's antiques but can re-organise them into display cupboards or can adopt a senior cat which is less likely to jump up and down(?)
3. the girls have never looked after anything before, not sure if they will step up to the challenge or just throw the responsibility back to me or worse, to my mother (their maternal grandmother) after a while.
4. their father hates animals and has often told the girls that animals are dirty and dangerous. That is the most difficult challenge for me, an animal hater (and a potential abuser?) if we ever decide to have a pet. 

"Twins" on 1st Day of School 2016

Today is the first day of school on Monday 4 January 2016. 
I sent both my girls off at the door as they left for school, Juliane in Primary 6 and Marieann in Secondary 2. I took their photos and posted on Facebook. Many friends and colleagues commented that they look so much alike, like twins! Haha.

What do you think? 
When I told the girls about them looking like twins, they both went, "Eww, I don't want to look like Jie Jie/ Mei Mei" in unison. Lol :D

I wish them both a wonderful start to the new school year in 2016!

More Colouring Books

Good things must share. Since I am doing the colouring book, I also bought colouring books for my girls. Haha. :D Hopefully colouring will give them peace and make them more patient.

School Again

It's back to school again for the new term. Hopefully the girls will engaged their time more meaningfully during the new school term than they were during the holidays. They were watching the Charmed tv series. Ok I used to watch it too. :) Wondering why they are not watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer t series... :P

Examinations!

Juliane has completed her examinations last week. Marieann is having hers this week. I used to make them sit down and do their revision in my presence. This year I decided to see if they can do it on their own without so much monitoring on my part. However, it is also the transition year for both the girls - from P4 to P5 and from P6 to Sec 1 which usually sees a dip in the results because of the increase in content and in subjects. We shall see...  

Practical Daughters

Last night, Marieann asked if I wanted carnation for Mother's Day. I refused to answer her and asked her what she thinks. While at work today, I received an sms from Marieann that she has bought me carnation. I thanked her for the flowers and she smsed back that she only bought one flower and followed by "haha". Gosh, I do have very practical daughters - one sent Mother's Day message way in advance to avoid forgetting and the other actually asked if I wanted carnation for Mother's Day first before buying. 
I guess I can't blame them as I am a very practical person too. :) Like mother, like daughter. :) 

Breakfast with Daughters

A Breakfast with Daughters was organised at my counselling school. It is a really good idea for parents to have breakfast together with their daughters in school. Parents can learn more about how their daughters behave in school, who their friends are as well as mingle with the other parents and school staff in a relaxing atmosphere. :)

Three-Generation Events

It seems there are a few things that the women/girls in my family will do together as three generations - getting a haircut and visiting the dentist lol. Interestingly, we haven't been shopping together for clothes yet lol. 
We had our dental check-up today at my friend's dental clinic in the afternoon after which we went to our hairdresser for our haircut in the evening. :)

Happy Valentine's Day 2015

A little rose petal candle made by Marieann. Thank you!

Happy Valentine's Day 2015!!

Day 6 Penang 2014: Going Home/ HOME!

We are going home today to Singapore. We are sad that our holiday is coming to an end. However, we should have a full stomach so that we have the energy to wallow in our sorrow about the end of our holiday lol. Juliane tried the Asian selection but it is Dim Sum today. I had Classic egg with toast again but there is an extra teacup of pineapple jam which was absolutely delicious. I was actually eating it on its own! :P Mariean had her French toast again.

After our breakfast, we just chilled and relaxed in our room. I checked our luggage again to make sure everything has been packed. We just lazed in bed, either reading or playing on the iPad or watched tv until check-out time 12pm. By the way, I promised to give you a closer look at the unique security for Noordin Mews rooms. :)

A unique security system at Noordin Mews. Really lock and key! :)

Once unlocked, we will leave the lock on the other side. Indicate to staff too that we are inside.

The security system from the inside. We were tickled when we first got to our room.

We will miss our Noordin Mews Upstairs Room, I

Check out was a breeze. As we were only leaving for the airport at 2:30pm, Noordin Mews kindly helped us to store our luggage while we skipped over to Prangin Mall for lunch. We tried this restaurant, Little Oasis. The food was not too bad. :)

The link bridge between 1st Avenue and Prangin Mall

After lunch, we walked back to 1st Avenue mall from Prangin Mall to get back to Noordin Mews. Marieann also did some last minute shopping at both 1st Avenue mall (wallet) and Noodin Mews (a fragrance named Georgetown which is actually quite nice). She used up the half of my emergency money and I had to activate my credit card too. Wah, she is really spending a lot! :S Guess shopping at the airport is out. Although we were technically no longer guests of Noordin Mews, we were still treated like one as the staff offered us iced water and ice cream. That is what I call service! :)
We took photos with the wonderful staff of Noordin Mews. Their wonderful service, attention to details, attentiveness to customers and wealth of knowledge have definitely won our hearts. We will most certainly stay at Noordin Mews again when we visit Penang again. The girls have already told me that they wanted to come back to Penang next year and they WANT to stay at Noordin Mews again.

We arrived at the Penang International Airport (PIA) early at 3pm. Our flight Jetstar 3K 676 departs at 5:20pm lol. By 3:30pm, we were checked in. By 4pm, we cleared immigration customs. When we were clearing customs, I also pick up RM$25 just before we put our carry-on through the immigration scanners. Lucky or what?! Lol. :P

With the last of my emergency money, close to RM$40, we bought some sandwiches and also local food products, e.g. coconut biscuits and waited at our departure gate A6 for boarding.

While waiting at our gate A6, we saw our plane pulling up and also dark storm clouds. :( A storm is coming...

It started raining heavily as we were boarding the plane. It seemed departure would be as scheduled despite the heavy rain. By 5:30pm, we were in the air. :) As I opted for Plus bundles on our return flight too, we bought light refreshment with our $15 F&B vounchers.

Bye, Penang

We are in the air!

Penang Bridge in the distance

A closer view of the Penang Bridge

Another view of the Penang Bridge

We were above the storm clouds

Sun setting

Our refreshment

The flight was smooth and we arrived on time to Singapore. However, due to the heavy storm in Singapore in the late afternoon, our plane could not land as scheduled at 6:45pm. Instead we had to circle in the sky to wait for instructions from the control tower for our turn to land. We saw a few planes in the sky circling around too. They were in the queue to land as well.

Another plane circling the sky

Landed!

Beautiful sunset

Home!

We finally landed around 7:05pm. At our baggage claim Belt 20, there was another delay due to technical issues with ground handling agent's equipment. We eventually collected our luggage at 7:45pm. During our wait for our luggage, we had company in the form of my colleague and friend, Azlina! She was at the airport to meet up with another friend who arrived back in Singapore slightly earlier than we did lol. It was quite funny that we were texting each other even though we were just 300 metres apart. My girls said we were so near and yet so far. Thanks Azlina for staying with us and even offering to drop us off at the train station to catch a cab as the girls' father was nowhere in sight.
We made our way over to Terminal 2 to get some dinner while waiting for the girls' father who was going to be really late. I saw Penang Culture and asked the girls wanted to have Penang food. They said unanimously "NO"! HAHA. I guess they have had enough of Penang food. :P We finally had dinner at a restaurant they had been trying to go to in Penang - Sakae Sushi!

Happy girls at Sakae

We reached home just after 9:30pm. We were tired but we were also excited as my parents were also back from their Taiwan & Xiamen trip after two months and that meant we would have presents! :) The girls were busy telling their grandparents about about our Penang trip. :) We definitely had a great time in Penang!! :)