My exploration in life… (diary for baby!)

YEN and I have been seeing quite a few changes in RACHEL these few days - she has learnt new tricks to put up for us once every few days.  =)

First it was flicking her tongue so that it makes a sound a couple of days back.  Then, she stuck her tongue out.  The newest one is her bringing her lower lip to reach up far, covering her upper lip in the process.  It is really a joy for YEN and I to watch her grow and mature.

Sometime a week back, she really got me worried and sad when she just refused to be carried by me.  I don’t know the reason, perhaps it started when I tried to bathe her in the mornings during my one-week break after the Lunar New Year holidays.  For the few days, she would cry every time I tried to carry her in my arms.  It was only on last Friday that she started "being friendly" with me again.  =(

ROZALI, ROSE and their three children visited over the weekend to pay a courtesy call on our place.  They reckoned that it had something to do with RACHEL sensing the arrival of our new baby and thus, throwing tantrums.  Better still, their "conspiracy theory" linked itself to the gender of our unborn, though they failed to agree on one gender.  Ha; but it was fun having them come over.

I’ve started my second teaching practice at NAN HUA PRIMARY.  However, I’ve done some thinking and came to a conclusion that I may not be posted back to that school for my final posting, based on the linear distance of my place to the school and also, the fact that it already has three trained Physical Education teachers, while schools around the vicinity of my place may have less, or even none…

Thus, I’m thinking of my "plan B", and it seems a more sensible one.  I am thinking of asking for a school near SGH where YEN works.  It is really very much economical that way, since I drive and fetch her to / from work every day.  She needn’t wake up in the wee hours just because of me that way.  I called ZHANGDE PRIMARY and spoke to its vice-principal.  I was very surprised when he immediately set up a meeting for me with him later today.  I’ll see how things go from there…  ("/)

Friends just left our place for one of the strangest Lunar New Year gathering YEN and I have ever hosted.  I’ll write about that in a while to tell you more about it.  And as this is a week of celebrations, I’ll spare you - my ardent supporters - of reading the heart-wrenching (tsk!) lessons I’ve learnt before…

But first and most importantly, one of my best buddies, WILSON (better known to us as ZHENSHUN), successfully asked for his girlfriend’s (MINGFEN) hand in marriage.  I’ve known him for twenty-one years and counting now, and am sure glad that he is the second one in my group of few great friends to be tying the knot, after seeing her for two years.

WILSON enlisted our help in decorating the restaurant he booked at ROBERTSON WALK the night before his proposal.  He spent a fortune, I tell you, in having the place to himself, in buying the thousands of flowers (MINGFEN loved roses, I heard, and WILSON got countless numbers of them), etc.

Must not forget to mention that his ring was one that most people would only dream of even seeing it up close - I mean, it costs half the cost of a car!  But I really wouldn’t expect less of him, given that he is a hopeless romantic at times, and the huge amount he pockets monthly (and it is only fitting for able people like him, having the gift of the gap as a lawyer).

I just wish him a really happy, blissful wedded life ahead and at the same time, hope too that the rest of my few best buddies follow our footsteps sooner; life feels fuller with a family of your own, I attest to this!  And for the few who are still unattached - WENQIANG, SHIYONG, CEYU, MINGSONG and other great guys - I plead for the good single ladies to rescue them from the mire of single hood as they are all brilliant guys!

Am not sure how RACHEL is feeling now - she seems very irritable these few days, have a slight fever a couple of days ago and had diarrhoea too.  She is kind of "inconsolable" at times and wakes up crying at least at one-plus, two-plus and four-plus every night.  And the worst part is that she just cannot stop crying whenever I carry her after eleven or so at night.  This means that YEN can’t get any rest when RACHEL cries as it seems that only she can stop her crying almost immediately when she does at night.  My poor lovely wife and baby!  =(

Right, about this strange New Year gathering - JIANZHONG and his wife, SHUFEN - EDDIE’s secondary school mates I have got to know through the years, asked me about a week or so ago if they could visit us on the third day of lunar new year.  JIANZHONG had been a particularly close friend of EDDIE’s, joining us and mum at home for meals and gatherings for a few occasions, and we had even joked that JIANZHONG was my mum’s third son.  So naturally, I replied that he could as we were not expecting anyone or anything else on that day.

This morning, I contacted him on the details of his visit as he hadn’t furnished me with any.  He told me that he’ll visit at noon (about 2pm), probably with two of his other secondary school mates.  Although I knew them by person as I had joined EDDIE and his friends for football games before (especially before I met the accident), I felt a little surprised as I hadn’t knew their other friends that well. 

But it’s okay, I thought, as YEN and I were always willing hosts for gatherings.  YEN even agreed to prepare some lunch in the form of "fried bee hoon" for us.  I told EDDIE and HUIJUN to join us too as JIANZHONG and SHUFEN were after all, closer to EDDIE.

JIANGZHONG and SHUFEN arrived at our house at the earlier specified time and we chatted merrily.  But little did YEN and I find out that we were expecting more than another "two" friends; in fact, a total of five others appeared.  I’m not going to say that they were uninvited.  I was just "swept away" by their appearance.

Still, we played good hosts and attended to their needs - luckily there was enough food and drinks, provided them 3 decks of cards for their playing, ensured that there was enough seats and the place was cool enough, etc.  But it just felt strange - we weren’t exactly the people they came to visit, though it was at our place, today.  And they left, adjourning to EDDIE’s place for more games, without expressing gratitude (just a word of "thanks" will do really) and while YEN and I brought RACHEL downstairs, to shop for more food for dinner later.

Ha, so when we returned to an empty house after buying the necessary, we were just bewildered at how things developed today, and how it just didn’t seem like a visit to see us at our home for the New Year.  It just felt strange, no offence to our visitors today - I think we would enjoy hosting other closer friends as at least we would be able to find a reason to have them over.  Ha…

Today marked the end of the last hockey practical lesson, and the end of the two-day skill assessment we had.  I did well for a couple of the stations we had yesterday, while disappointing myself at others.  And today was the last assessment - performing the learnt in a game-like situation where we were split into teams of 3 vs 3 .

My team was one that I preferred - YONGSHENG and KAIXIN were my partners.  As always, I still managed to, fall at crunch time.  They are both better sportsmen and game players than I am, and naturally, I found myself not doing too much to help my own predicament.  The lecturer, Mr GURMIT SINGH (the lecturer and not Mr PCK), dropped a big hint during assessment that he wanted to see me perform certain skills like 1-2s or deflections, but the ball never came to me despite my constant running into positions to open up play.  I think I made myself look like a fool, scurrying around and not receiving the ball at all.  When the ball finally did come my way, I was not ready to capitalise on situations.

After the assessment, I was so angry at myself.  I knew I did not do myself any justice at all.  I had undone all the good work, if I had any, I had put up previously.  But I cooled down, thought of the reason I took up the game of hockey despite not knowing anything about it: I wanted to learn a new sport.  I had accomplished that already.  Nevermind the grades, as I do not need As or Bs to finish my education at NIE.  And there is a last assignment to worry about too.  Still, I just can’t help feeling sorry for my inability to perform when I needed to.  Sigh.

This is the last week we have in NIE.  We will have two tests - one on PHYSIOLOGY tomorrow and one on FITNESS & CONDITIONING on Thursday - to worry about. Not to mention quite a few assignments due before we start our teaching practice on 26 February - HOCKEY, ENGLISH and PHYSIOLOGY.  I’m going to NAN HUA PRIMARY SCHOOL again with FAIZAL and SUMIKO until early May this time.

I think my chance of teaching in the school after that is really quite slim after listening to the posting section in MOE give us a talk to explain how we would be posted.  They are still looking at you teaching in schools around where you live first while they look at the need of teachers for the school, before looking at requests from school principals and trainee teachers themselves.  There are quite a few schools in the JURONG WEST area without any trained PE teachers, I think.  It looks like I would most probably be going to one of them.  Double sigh!

This second pregnancy YEN is having have already shown some difference: She is having bouts of nausea every now and then for this second one.  And almost everyone who has seen RACHEL says they could tell by the single folds on her skin that YEN would bear us a son during her second pregnancy.  Is there any truth in them?  I don’t know - we’ll probably know in her next scan a few weeks later!  And I still maintain that as their parents, we will love them all the same, regardless their gender.  We can only wish that they could be born healthy, the biggest gift we would have…

I continue writing about some lessons I have learnt from my past experiences - this one is about my growing up years.  Yes, I have said in the last post that I have very little memories of my childhood.  I think this is because I spent my free time on weekdays playing with EDDIE and my neighbours, WENFENG and KUMARESH, then for most of that time.  And it was almost the same everyday with the same games…

My grandmother, mum of my mother, stay with my family until a ripe old age of ninety-three, until she passed away when I was thirteen.  She was such a nice woman, taking care of the two of us and making sure that the housework was done while both my parents worked.  We were not very well-to-do (and still are), and they couldn’t afford to hire a domestic helper for my grandma nor take care of us.

It is really perhaps that both my parents had to work, plus the fact my parents seldom spoke to us, that I do not remembering too much of their caring for us and our conversations.  I only remember that mother forbade EDDIE and I out to play with other kids after we returned home from school.  But my grandma would close an eye to that, and we grew from playing football along the HDB corridor and catching around the HDB block.  This was as long as we fulfilled our tasks to get the floor at home mopped before mother returned at 5:45pm sharp after work. 

Looking back, I think a lot of EDDIE and my athleticism came from those games.  I would like to suggest that parents should let their children take part in a variety of sports and games when they are young, so that they are exposed to them.  Kids should be allowed to choose which they wish to take part in so that they maintain a healthy lifestyle (I got my ability to run long distances rather fast earlier through these games).  These games allow them to maintain an acceptable weight through active participation and moving, and they proceed to make friends from there.

Of course, parents must also take part in their children’s lives - speak to them, advise them not to make the wrong choices, do fun things so as to bond and allow both have common memories they could speak about and reminisce in life later.

YEN had just went for her scan.  It is essential, if we wanted to know if our unborn child might have the Down’s syndrome, that she went for this scan twelve weeks into her pregnancy.

No, it is not mandatory to have the scan done, but for me, I think it’s always good to know before the child arrives into this world, and we already have prepared ourselves mentally if the child will need special treatment / attention.  We could make special arrangements to ease his or her arrival if we could know, I feel.  Fortunately, this second child of ours, like the elder sister, would most probably be born normal and healthy, as it stands at the moment.

These weeks have passed much faster than previous ones.  We find ourselves being very, very tired from all the rushing to meet deadlines and making sure we don’t encroach into others’ space or step on others’ "tails", pleasing as many as we can.  Work is hard already - long hours for YEN, and physically plus mentally demanding for me, just to name a couple of demands we feel the strain from.  And Princess RACHEL doesn’t help by refusing to co-operate to let us have a hard time to coax her to sleep at night.  The nights are especially long nowadays, as RACHEL throws her tantrums…

With the end of the weeks we see ourselves holed up and sheltered from "angels and devils" in the battlefield (the schools), we find ourselves getting ready to do battle in our second, and final, teaching practice.  We begin that straight after the Lunar New Year holidays, no respite after the end of the six-week long lessons.  It is might as well, really, as we can tune ourselves to working life, again for some of us.

Will I miss the days I spent in NIE?  A little too early to say, perhaps, but I can tell you I sure miss the times we go through mentally and physically demanding tests we had - ROZALI, ADRIAN, ANDRE, YONGSHENG, SHAWN, JIANWEN, SHIREN, KAIXIN, WEIQIANG, FAIZAL, LAP YIN, among others…  I might not see many of them again (by chance or choice), but perhaps it is fitting to thank all of my coursemates for what we have been through these two years.  I sure got to know myself a little better in these times.  And no, I don’t just mean how unfit I am.  =(

Being the old man that I am, I sometimes look back over my shoulders and wish that I could make right what I had done wrong in the past.  I’ll tell my little stories to you, my friends, bit by bit, and if you are not able to benefit from my little stories, hopefully they could be of some help to educating our young.  RACHEL and younger sibling, "listen" here real good…

The first bits I’m writing on are on little childhood memories.  I don’t have too much of them, really.  Either my memory is failing me selectively - remembering only the good bits (which there aren’t too many!  Darn!), or I’m getting senile.  Ha.  I dedicate this one to my late father.

My father was born in 1936.  By the time I was born in 1978, he was already 42.  He is a simple man who enjoys simple pleasures in life - enjoying a smoke (he used to be a really heavy smoker when he was much younger, I was told), watching programmes on the television (this was long before the days SCV entered our lives), flipping through the Chinese newspapers even as he received very little formal education and hardly understands most words, a drink of stout every night before he goes to bed, and the normal weekend mahjong sessions.  Many of us have different opinions of things we enjoy in life; my late father’s may not sound the healthiest and most exciting, but that’s how he chose to spend his time and I respect my old man’s choices.

A quiet man, he spoke very little to us, even after we were grown up and he was retired, spending all his time at home.  But in his strong, silent ways, I know that he loves us and dotes on me, the elder child, especially.

This is perhaps why I so steadfastly believe in caring after my parents the best we could, until they leave us for another world.  I’m not saying that I gave him the best possible.  Hey, neither am I here to advocate that we should have children late, and keep a distance from them, speaking to them only when required.  I am not a good spokesperson for that already.  =P

I know for a fact that I somewhat failed in my responsibilities as the eldest son in my family by not providing him with a more comfortable life, and not letting him take pleasure in seeing and carrying his grandchildren before he left us, among others things.  But I know that in that situation when he was around, I had done my best, being not matured enough then.

And it is through my reflection of our lives earlier, that I decided that I should have at least my first child before I turn 30 or latest, 35.  I do not wish to burden my child with the harsh reality of having to support the family from a young age.  No, I do not blame my parents for not having children earlier, nor having any sort of financial planning before deciding to bring us into this world.  These have only taught me not to put blame on others for what is already irreversible in life over the earlier years’ happenings, to look ahead and make best of what we face ahead.

I thank my father for giving us the best he could afford (there are stories to attest to this later).  How I wish I could have done more for him before he passed on in 2004…

All these have reminded me to really communicate with my wife and children, make the best of life so as not to let anyone have any regrets when we leave this world later in life…  I hope this serves as a reminder to all my friends too to communicate more with our loved ones…

EDDIE and HUIJUN had their customary dinner this past Monday at MARINA MANDARIN.  In Chinese customs, only now he is "officially married" and can start their family.  Think they are going to wait a few years before they try as they wish to stabilise their finances and all before they do try.  Anyhow, our mother need not worry about us in the area of marriage and just look forward to carrying her grandchildren.

We had so looked forward to EDDIE’s customary dinner, and little RACHEL attending it, being dressed pretty.  She sure did dress very nicely, but she really cried quite a lot - something we were so afraid of.  We spent quite a bit of time trying to pacify her the whole night that we really couldn’t enjoy the dinner like we had wished to.  I guess that’s how life is like when you have children.  But tell you what - life has its ups and downs, and we are willing to take these downs along with the many joyous moments that come along with the pride of our lives.  =)

The coming week is the "study week", or the "E-Learning Week" - the new term they have given it.  And a last week remains before we look forward to going to schools for our second and last teaching practise.  But before we worry about all these, let’s just worry about passing the last tests and handing up the assignments in time in the week after E-Learning Week!  =(