Little J fell and had a deep cut near his mouth last Sunday. We opted not to have stitches to spare him the pain. However, the wound got infected and he has to be on anti-biotic now :(  and there is going to be an-inch long scar once the wound recovers. He misses school and his friends so much and has been pestering me to go back to school. I guess he still needs to avoid school for the next few days….

In my previous entry about learning Mandarin, I mentioned that Smart Little Beans Reading Center is not so “smart”. Reader Kathleen asked to share the story about Smart Little Beans and this is what I replied to her comment:

I feel that Smart Little Beans (SLB) is a bit too “academic” for my son’s liking. Little J is 5+ and he has short attention span. He learns faster through fun and play. SLB’s concept incorporate a lot of readings and no play and lots of words actually put him off. The concept may work on certain child but not my Little J.

And also 3 languages at one time does not work for him either. Our main focus is Mandarin because he is relatively good in BM and English. In SLB, the teacher who teaches Mandarin and BM tends to explain and communicate with him in English, as such he is not picking up much Mandarin compare to Bao Bei where Mandarin is strictly used. The teacher actually says that because he speaks English at home, therefore it will be easier for him to understand if she explains in English. That defeats our purpose of sending him to the center to learn Mandarin.

Oh yes, do be aware that if you choose to send your child to Smart Little Beans, your deposit which they collected from you is NOT refundable. I was not informed of their refund policy until I told them that Little J will stop end of this month. They said that it was mentioned in the terms and condition which I signed upon registration and Little J has to stay till end of August. My point is if we have no confidence in their programmes, why should we waste another one month in the center?

Till now, I am still baffled as to why the center needs a child to give one month notice to stop lesson. Common understanding of the purpose of deposit is in case parents do not pay up the fee for a particular month, then the deposit will be forfeited. I was wondering if the center needs the one month notice to get a replacement student.. strange policy! Lesson learnt, signing without reading what I signed, I am actually signing my life away, haha.. luckily it is only a RM300 deposit and not my life!

Both Big J & Little J have not been very receptive towards Mandarin. At home, we speak in English. When Big J first started attending Chinese Primary School, he was struggling with Mandarin. I did not give him a good foundation in Mandarin. Due to his weakness in Mandarin, he had problems to understand Maths and Science in Mandarin and he did fairly in these subjects as well. As a result, his grades were only average and he was not motivated to study.

When he was in Primary 2, I started to scout around for a good tuition center to improve his Mandarin. I enrolled him at a nearby tuition center which focussed on school Mandarin syllabus. 4 months passed, there was no progress. 6 months passed, still no progress. He became very frustrated for not being able to catch up and he was starting to lose interest in Mandarin. I realised that the problems lie with him having no good foundation in Mandarin. I started to survey all Mandarin enrichment centers such as HanYu Home, MEB and Bao Bei Reading Wonderland to find out their teaching method. The one which caught my attention was Bao Bei Reading Wonderland. They use flash cards, incorporate play and games, their concept is learning Mandarin the fun way.

I wasted no time to enrol Big J. He was the eldest kids among the smaller children. Amazingly, he showed tremendous progress and most important of all, he started to have interest in Mandarin. He was always looking forward to go to the center. And automatically, his Mandarin in school started to show improvement. From Grade C/D to Grade A/B! 

I realise that Little J must have some exposure to Mandarin since he will be going to a Chinese primary school. I enrolled him in Bao Bei as well and his Mandarin improves tremendously. Then, a friend recommended me to check out Smart Little Beans Early Reading Center which focus on 3 languages, English, BM and Mandarin. I checked out the center and decided to give Little J a try.

3 weeks after Little J started his lessons in Smart Little Beans, I found out that the center is not so smart afterall, found it out the hard way! Little J is happy to go back to Bao Bei Chinese Reading Center! He misses the center due to mummy’s bad decision to switch to Smart Little Beans. :(  Why is Smart Little Beans not so smart, it’s another story for another day…

I really hate, hate haze! It’s been so bloody hazy for the past one week. Haze aggravates Big J’s allergy, haze causes Little J to have severe runny nose! That is despite me having a air purifier in their room and my living room.

Haze makes all my clothes smell like charcoal! It’s about time that I get a cloth dryer.. I drag to imagine what the haze will do to our lungs in the long run. And poor kids have to stay indoor all the time! Haze has been a “loyal” visitor for the past 15 years, as far as I can recall. What are the authorities going to do something? Or can they do anything at all? Probably it’s time that we seriously take a look at that greener pasture, faraway from haze. :(

Both Js have been attending Yamaha Junior Music Course which emphasis on the Play by Ear method and a lot of interaction between children and the teacher. It is highly recommended for kids between the age of 4 to 6 and it is good for children especially those with short attention span. Children attending JMC use keyboard with at least 61 full sized touch-sensitive keys.

Big J will be advancing to JAC and Little J will be advancing to JXC this coming Oct. In fact, Big J has been “complaining” to me that 61 keys is not sufficient and has been “pestering” me to upgrade to the 88 keys instrument. I have been scouting around and couldn’t decide on either the acoustic classical Piano or the digital Clavinova.

I have checked the internet for reviews and there are pros & cons. Dilemma.. dilemma…

I wonder why I keep receiving spams from Russia. It’s really kind of strange that only Russians spam my blog. Not that I have many genuine Russians readers. Today alone, I receive 19 comments from Russian spammers! Anyone knows what the heck they spam about.. Let me copy some of their comments here…

“Автор, а у вас никто записи не тырит? А то у меня заколебали уже - копируют и копируют. И главное, что даже ссылку никто не удосужится поставить.”

“Вот мои, смотрите”

“ой… какая прелесть…”

“Полностью разделяю Ваше мнение. Мысль хорошая, согласен с Вами.”

???????????????????????????//

It’s the Malaysia Mega Sales season yet again! I am going to succumb to my shopaholic habit if I don’t self-imposed ban on visits to Shopping mall… but..but.. I have already promised the kids to treat them to watch Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen which means paying a visit to a shopping mall.. How ah??

I have never liked to attend Big J’s parent-teacher meeting since he was in Primary 1. No, it is not because I am worried that I might be “lectured” by the teacher. He is an above-average student and has been well-behaved in school. The reason why I don’t like to attend this session because it is during this session that I will get to meet all those kiasu Ah-Sohs mothers. I will get questions like, “Eh, what’s your son’s position ah? class position? standard position?” How many mark did he get for English, BM, Mandarin?”..blah, blah, blah… Each year, I will hurriedly walk to my car and drove off.

This year, I experienced a very, very ugly side of a kiasu parent. I have been car pooling with hubby’s good friend’s wife who has a son Big J’s age. Each term exam, she would ask Big J for his grades in all the papers he sat. Big J has never liked to brag about his grades, so each time, he politely said that he did not remember his grade. Clever him!

The “juicy” story starts here.

Yesterday was the parent-teacher meeting session when parents will be briefed on the child’s grade, his position in class etc. She offered to car pool and I declined politely because I want to avoid all those questions she will ask..what’s the grades, what’s his position? etc. At the school, I avoided bumping into her and left the school once I met Big J’s teacher, thinking that I have succeeded to “evade” her! How wrong I was!

She called me to ask about Big J’s grades!! Politely I told her that Big J does not wish to let anyone know about his grade, which is the truth. That very night, her hubby invited hubby for “teh tarik”. I almost fell off the chair when hubby told me that her hubby asked hubby about Big J’s grade during the “teh tarik” session! Of course, hubby told him the same thing, that we should respect Big J’s decision not to disclose his grades.

And this morning, when she picked up the kids, she had the nerve to “lecture” me and accused me, saying that by teaching my son not to disclose his grade, I am risking my son having no friend. (She failed to know that Big J has been a very popular boy in school with tons of friends). She further lamented that as friends, we should share our children’s results. You see, she has always liked to broadcast her children’s grades. She threatened not to disclose her children’s grades to me from now on. I almost fainted. I have never had any interest in her children’s grade! What good does it do to me to know? Oh yes, all my friends, I mean really good friends have never, ever asked about my son’s grades neither do I ask them about their children’s grades.

As I type this entry, I am still dumbfounded as to why she was so desperate to know Big J’s grade?