Singapore "Idle"

“As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.” ~Benjamin Franklin

Oh my God. Where has all the time gone to? How long has it been since I last posted on my blog? I’ve just woken up from a very deep coma…

Alright, for those who thought that I’ve been idling for the past two weeks, I’m here to tender my excuse, I mean, explanation, for my absence for the past two weeks.

The weekend before last was chaotic, hectic, frantic, frenzied, fervent… It’s the Kids’ Revision Week, aka Mother’s Torturing Week. To help Mervin revise on his Chinese and Mathematics, I took out Rachel’s past year’s assessment books, and copied the questions for that rascal to tackle. By the end of Sunday, my right hand nearly suffered a stroke and become paralyzed.

On Monday, I went to the kids’ school to join some other parent volunteers as judging panel for a recipe contest among the Primary Five students. It’s just my luck that the parent volunteer who had given me a headache the other time during the Racial Harmony Day event was one of the judges too. Needless to say, she didn’t fail to fire some missiles at my direction once more. The feedback I got from her this time round was “rigid”, “inflexible”, “dead-brained”… I was speechless.

On Tuesday, I helped a teacher out by bringing her Primary One class to a zoo outing. The weather was hot, scorching, sweltering… I was literally melting under the hot sun while screaming my lungs out to yell at the kids to keep together.

At the Polar Bear enclosure, the kids were sitting quietly finally, ogling at the bear behind the glass, waiting for the white creature to take its dip in the water. It was a funny scene. The kids sat quietly staring at the bear, as the bear sat quietly staring back at their eager faces. At that moment, it was hard to tell who the real audience was.

A valuable lesson learned at the end of the day: “Animals are more tamed than kids.”

Wednesday was Mentoring Day for the Primary Four boy I had offered to help. As I sat with him for an hour trying to engage him in reading, he was busily toying with his Beyblade and looking at his watch. For once, I truly appreciate my kids. But I doubt I will think the same when they get back their test papers this week.

Thursday was recuperating day. While clearing my email inboxes and catching up with some friends, I attempted writing up something for my blog. Alas! My mind’s a blank! My system simply crashed…

It’s another zoo outing on Friday, this time with Angel’s class. It’s another hot, scorching, sweltering day. It’s another melting and lung-exploding experience. To add on the fun, we were led on a merry-go-round trip and bombarded with persistent, repetitive questioning from the kids. I was glad to find my head still resting on my neck when we got back to school. I had a feeling it had gone somewhere else on its own amidst the excursion.

The lesson learned at the end of the day: “Animals are STILL more tamed than kids AND they don’t plague you with questions.”

It was a last minute Packing Day on Saturday for Rachel’s Shanghai trip. We threw whatever available for the trip into the suitcase and did some shopping for more necessities. It’s really unimaginable how much things a little girl will need for a twelve-day trip overseas.

My dear Mummy and Sis and Bro and his wife came visiting on Sunday! We had a great time eating our lunch together, then sitting down to chat, then had some more snacks, then more chatting, then more food… Oh gosh! I think my waist expanded in merely a day!

It was another last minute rush when we tried to get Rachel’s pimple cream for her trip. By the time we went to the shop, it was closing time. Darn. We headed to another shop only to find out that the cream was out of stock. We had to dash to another store where thankfully, we found what we need.

Then came today: the Great Day for Rachel.

Please stay tuned…