Bees and birds

This was bound to happen....

But we couldn't fathom that it would occur now at her, Laetitia's, tender age of 8.

The other day, our gal was reading some back issues of a school magazine that she had brought back home. Suddenly she popped the question : "Daddy, what is periods?"

I was stopped cold in my tracks immediately, (alarm claxons going off inside my head), trying to look cool and composed.

Daddy : What are you saying, 'periods'?

Laetitia : Ya, 'periods'

Daddy : Where did you get it from?

Laetitia : From the magazine

Daddy : The school magazine that you are reading now? Gimme the magazine please, can I take a look.

(And yes....there was a 1page comic describing 'periods'.....hastily scanning through it and readying myself to give a proper answer)

Laetitia : Ya...so what are 'periods' then?

Daddy : (pointing at her abdomen)....well, you see, you are a girl, and unlike boys, you have eggs inside your stomach. Same as mummy and aunty and all other ladies. Boys don't have eggs as only girls carry babies inside their stomach. Well, in a few years time when you become a young lady, those eggs will drop down, like ...ermmm....fruits which are ripe fall of a tree, something similar. So once a month, an egg will drop down, flush out and it will cause a bit of stomach pain.

Laetitia : (oddly looking at me and at her own stomach)

Daddy : (taking a deep breath)...Do you know how you can see the egg falling down, coming out?

Laetitia : Nooooo.....

Daddy : Well, you can't see the egg actually as it is so small and tiny, but you will lose some blood. The blood carries the egg away. Now you understand why mummy needs to buy those 'pampers'. Those 'pampers' are for stopping the blood dirtying the panties

Laetitia : Aiyaa, I die of bleeding.....

Daddy : No, it's just a little bit of blood, a few days a month. Don't worry about it. Do you understand what 'periods' means now?

Laetitia : Ya... (and she merrily goes her own way, continuing to read the magazine in question)

So that was our first sex ed., wasn't really that difficult, but heck, she is barely 8 years old......kids nowadays.....

Let's see what's in store for us regarding sex ed. related questions from her......follow the flow I'd guess. And nooo, not the flow of the egg!!!

Rock 'n roll in Yuen's manner

Father and daughter spending some precious time together. And to know what's in her own world....I have to act like a child again, and set aside my adulthood.

Which is actually a whole load of fun........

Too bad though that she is a bit topheavy nowadays......I'm barely able to throw her into the air.

Well, I just cherish these moments as in a few years time she will be too embarrassed to play with daddy like that again.

Chinese Teaching Methods

Holiday camp........

Joining a holiday camp is a must nowadays. Instead of letting our little dragon rest a bit (sleeping out till noon, fattening herself like a ravenous piglet who had been on hungerstrike recently, catching up on her reading lecture and mindlessly watching TV), we've sent her to a one-week holiday camp.

Nah, not camp....it's more of a course.

A non-profit organisation with the sole aim of improving cultural relationships between Chinese Malaysians and China had organized an educational workshop for kiddo's (and eventual profits from the proceedings will benefit local charity).

The course itself : Synopsis :

There is an infamous teacher in China who proclaims that he (and ofcourse his private school = $$$...can u hear the cashregister ringing?) can teach children to recognize 9000 Chinese characters in the space of a few months,......so as a teaser for the Chinese Malaysian audience, the organizers have invited 2 teachers from this particular school to conduct a 1-week seminar in Kuala Lumpur.

Ofcourse, I'm not asking you to believe that the teachers were going to teach our daughter thousands of characters in a week's time. That would be a bit too much, wouldn't it? The one week course would encompass a selection of popular Chinese proverbs....taught in a fun manner.

The methods entailed would be 'singing rhymes, dancing'......not using any writing tools or sitting down to memorize like a donkey. Classes began at 9am in the morning and would finish by 5pm...6 days long. Thus a gruelling 6-days holiday camp was in store for our little gal.

And ofcourse, Jess, was involved with it too......being part of the organizing committee, she was involved with all the behind-the-scenes duties before and during the workshop. Which to be honest was quite a feat as she had to organize this course from scratch.

And me? I'm a 'banana'....barely have a clue what the thing was about...so my duties were restricted to being a designated 'driver', transporting the 'family' and fellow students up and down.

Well, a minimum enrolment of 30 students would make it break-even, but due to the late notice and a few non-willing authorities, a total of 16 students signed up. Luckily a generous maecenas, in the form of Datin Seri Maggie C., opened up her purse and made this thing proceed as planned. So much the better for us then :p

Both Jess and me, didn't really have a clue of what was going on inside the classroom as we were a bit pre-occupied with our daily duties during that week....but it was strange to see the kids singing, jumping, shouting....it's not what we (being teachers ourselves) associate with 'learning', improving one's knowledge.

In the end the week passed by in a blink of an eye, and the last day entailed graduation, each participant receiving a laminated certificate and a performance for the parents.

We are wondering what methods the Chinese teachers used to instill all those Chinese proverbs into their minds? Just by singing, shouting, rhyming? Looked more like a child version of the Haka Warrior Chant to me. But the kids appeared to have memorized it without a sweat, and more importantly.......they love it.

I'd reckon that Jess and me should have an earnest talk.......that we should change our teaching methods.........'singing, shouting, running around'...what in a name....but as a precaution, we'd better buy some earplugs and stock up on pills against headache.

Fuel saving gimmick?

A gadget that can save us on our car fuel bills, improve the overall performance of our old wheels, and on top of that is environmentally friendly.............sounds like the Holy Grail to us.

Edwin, our erstwhile CCTV contractor/installer, has switched jobs and came knocking on our door whilst he was doing his 'rounds' in my neighbourhood.

He pitched his sales talk 'bout his gadget, a supposedly local invention with a patent (didn't bother to check it though), and because we're one of his old time customers we would get the thing at rock-bottom price, inclusive installation. He would install it instantly without asking for money and let us try it out for a while before we hand over our cash. And if we were not content with the results he'd uninstall the appliance, no questions asked.

Wow, hard to resist these T&C's, so we let him and his partner tinker with our car. It's a device which is attached to the fuel pump, drawing its power from the electrical grid of our car. Installation was done before I could blink my eyes and since a few weeks we've been driving around with this installed gadget.

Results? Strange....strange....adopting a normal driving style as before, our fuel consumption is slightly higher than normal (wasn't it supposed to be the opposite?), the hoarse engine noise is still loudly audible, but to be fair....gear changes are bit smoother though.

It's a bit too early to tell....it could turn out to be a fata morgana or it really might be a marvellous invention. Will keep you informed.

Tea-time gossip

On a daily basis, we, adults come together and engage into discussions.

After all, we are social beings who thrive on inter-communication, using our verbal skills to interact with eachother.

And so, it's no wonder that also children mimick us adults and engage into a conversation of their own.

I was witness to our daughter's 'tea-time' with Henry and Annie.......and heck, they just resemble us, adults : talking, eating and drinking.......enjoying themselves.

Take a look at the video below.......I still haven't figured out what they were talking about, and I'm not really inclined to find out....

Firstly I should respect their privacy and ............ secondly the topic is most probably a whole load of nonsense.

Who's the stuffed animal?

Take a close look at the above pics.....

Guess who's the stuffed animal.....shouldn't be too hard, but somehow the 'live' dog looks like it belongs in a Madame's Tussaud's show.

I'd say the dog is very mighty well trained

A new addition to our family

Yieehaaa,

Last weekend was IT Fair in Singapore and as it happened to be, I was down there too.

Knowing that electronical items are way, way cheaper in Singapore compared with Malaysia,...I did my homework first by checking the prices in KL first.

A quick comparison told me that a XBOX turned out to be nearly RM400 cheaper when bought in Singapore. Kewl, but I didn't have the ready cash on hand, but still, I was itching like hell.

Nicely, nicely ask my sis-in-law to fork out some cash (which was pretty easy) and I'd pay her back in a few month's time. Easy peasy....borrow her car, asking my niece to be the guide and off we went to IT Fair.

Doh, according to the news, there was an expected turnout of more than 150.000 attendants. Crisis, what crisis? During our 1hour long search for a parking bay, we witnessed dozens of peeps dragging out printers, desktops, laptops........looked like the whole of Singapore needed to replace their IT items.

Soit, we finally managed to squeeze our way through the crowd and arrive at the Microsoft Booth. The coveted boxes were there alright, and we even stood a chance of gaining back 100SGD if we were lucky with the 'spinning wheel'.

The gentleman in me let my niece turn the wheel, and we ended up with a ..... T-shirt. Ermmm.....better than nothing.

Got through customs easily on my way back home and now our new family member sits proudly in our household. Good boy, be a good boy.

Here come the days of play again.........looking forward to beating my football buddy ol' John again. He might be better than me on the football field, but I sure will give him a workout with the Xbox.

Brand obsession

What some people buy in order to stand out from the crowd, I would never understand.

Luxury items, are they a necessity? Everyone agrees not,....but somehow paying a premium price and knowingly that the purchased object would not really improve one's life is a big mystery to me.

But it seems I'm in a minority, as tons of people try to obtain luxury goods, but then again, since the price of these luxury goods are so steep, many resort to buying counterfeited items or ripoff's.

Sssshhhhh...........keep this between us.............my sis-in-law came up with a mobile sporting the LV brand. Ermmmm, since when did LV endorse a mobile phone? (unlike Prada LG and D&G Motorola). As naive as I was, I took it for real, until I tried out the mobile handset itself. Cover looks quite okay, logo is properly imprinted, even the spare battery looks flashy, but the menu resembled an old Sony-Ericsson handset with very basic features......mmhhhmmmm?

The cat finally came out of the bag,.....this handset was bought for SGD250 (125 euro's).

Gosh, what people would buy to be 'unique' in this world.

Anyway, it's a cheaper bet than buying the 'real' thing during these economic hard times.

Compromise

Yes,....we are in the education business......for a fee we teach/guide people (kids and adults alike) the respective subjects in order to score well in their tests/to achieve the desired results that they have set up as a target.

But how strangely the following may sound, our daughter is convinced of not needing any tuition from both us, Jess & me.

The gruelsome schedule at SJK(c) Chung Kwok, the accompanying daily homework load, is a bit too much for her she reckons and she says she needs some 'down time'.

Her proposal to us is the following :

• No tuition at all this term
• If her March exams are poor, she will resume tuition, no questions asked
• But if her exams turn out A-okay, then she will continue her 'down time' after school hours
  

Doh, Jess and me do not recall that we were like that when we were at a kid's age....we just obeyed our parents, whether we liked it or not....and that was it.

Seems that kids nowadays can and do demand 'things' which we deemed a definitely nonoo back then.

All well, Laetitia is after all our girl, and yups, she comes across as a little, mature lady from time to time....so heck, why not.....

Her exams are about to start in a few weeks time and we are, honestly speaking, a bit curious how this all turns out......

Hideously ugly or somehow attractive?

Jess needed some new footwear, but never would I have guessed that she opt for 'Crocs'!!

If you ask me, this brand is overhyped, darn ugly, childish, damn expensive for what it is (it is made of plastic for God's sake and not leather......the factory pumps out tons of these shoes on a daily basis....where is the craftmanship?).

But yes....she opted for Crocs because of the following qualities :

• comfy (very light to wear)
• affordability
• ease of maintenance (less polish and clean)

She admits that they don't really look good, but this time practical sense has the upper hand.

Well, whilst she was trying out a few pairs, I was wandering around, gaping at all those plastic shoes.....blimey, people really pay for this stuff?......

The crazy things were definitely the 'Jibbitz'..... childrenlike ornamentals to be plugged on (decorate) shoes....more a gimmick to lure kiddo's to ask mum and pops in order to be a 'designer' of one's own pair of shoes. Do you realize how much these "Jibbitz' cost? An outrageous RM10 (2 euro's) per piece (I can eat all day long with a bleeping RM10 if I want to) !!!

And other accessories galore.......a handphone pouch, ofcourse made out of plastic again....what in a name.

Okay, okay.....I should shut my mouth first and try out one of their shoes first before I continue my ranting.......maybe then I might change my mind and realize how 'good' these shoes really are.

A big MAYBE..........oh, in case if you are wondering whether the little dragon girl also has Crocs....yes, she already has a pair, thank you very much.

Wrong place

What in heck must that guy be doing there at the entrance of our street?

"Have people resorted to stealing signboards and selling them for scrap metal in order to meet end's meet?"

Those thoughts were lumbering inside my head as I saw this dude labouriously unrooting our street signboard.

So I gathered up my mettle and approached this sizeable dude.....asking him what he was doing.

Oddly, he was on official business......somebody from the higher echelons ordered him to move the street signboard 3 feet closer to the main road as there were some complaints by people that the signboard was not really visible.

Okay, I can live with that.....but only 3 feet (1 metre)?!?

If you ask my honest opinion, I don't see any difference between the old and new 'spot'. But heck, somebody must be happy enough with it as the signboard hasn't been relocated yet.

What a way to keep people busy with work.

A stroll in IKEA

IKEA,

Yes, I concur, IKEA furniture is not dirt cheap, it's not ready to use, as one has to assemble it one self (or if one has 2 left hands, let the professionals do it for a nominal fee)....and what's the logic of strolling through the showroom, jotting down all the numbers/references and going to the warehouse and pick it up one self?

But somehow, after a few visits to their store, one gets the hang of it.

And ofcourse, the layout of the store has some logic into it, the environment is clean and cosy, kids have their own playground and the kid's section is full of fluffy toys where they can feast their energy upon. The staff are tremendously helpful and genuinely friendly (what does IKEA management give them to eat anyway? as staff in other furniture stores are totally the opposite....more like grumpy, lazy, don't care and don't friggin' know attitude).

So it is no surprise that since the opening of its Malaysian branch (purportedly the largest in Asia) a few years ago, the IKEA store is a runaway success (and yups, it is conveniently located near to our house...just a mere 10 mins drive from our 'casa').

Practically every single day it is fully packed with shoppers, be they buy things or just are there to savour the IKEA experience. Mind you, IKEA Malaysia opens its doors at 7am in the morning and serves breakfast at cut throat prices, less than RM1 for a 'nasi lemak' ( 20 euro cents) and closes its doors at 10.30 pm, 7 days a week, all year round.

Also, a curious gimmick.......take this for example :

Normal next day delivery of furniture that you can't transport yourself would be RM65 (14 euro's).....but hear this out.....SAME DAY delivery (for goods bought before 3pm) will only cost RM50 (11 euro's).

So that means for a speedier delivery, one has to pay less than for a next day delivery......what's the logic of that?! Enlighten me please.

Last week we were there to buy some cupboards (to stack our ever growing number of DVD's) and somehow something seemed not right.

Yups, people abound, but the number of people was far lesser than we had previously encountered. Notice the empty aisles and non-existent queue's at the check-out (see accompanying video fragment). And I'm talking about midday....not the wee hours of early morning.

Economy crisis is finally trickling down into everyday's life and even the succesfull IKEA outfit is affected by it.

Don't hear us complaining though........Jess and me had a nice walk around, stuffed our stomach with food and bought a few sets of cupboards on the cheap.....no sweat....all this dude has to do is use his 'Bob the Builder' skills and voila.....'klaar is kees'