Where oh where have our morals gone?

We had a big disappointment this week. We found out that Keane has been copying answers from the back of his assessment book during his practices! We were more disappointed than upset with him. We duly informed him that we were sad that he lacked integrity. We suspect that he just wants to get his homework over and done with so that he can play. He did feel a bit ashamed but I wonder how long that feeling will last. It is very disappointing because Keane is very good natured and obedient.

I have been trying to spend more time with him because it is evident that he lacks attention and he is slowly showing signs of middle child syndrome. I am bringing him for hip hop dance class on Saturday and enrichment class at MindChamps on Sunday. I must say that he committed to these willing before anyone accuses me of being a kiasu mother. He has been bugging me about hip hop dance classes for a while. Fortunately the hubby found a school at Ang Mo Kio. The MindChamps was something that just came. A consultant gave a talk at our company and I attended a free seminar, aka selling session, and Keane attended a trial class. He liked the trial class and wanted to go back for more. That episode is another chapter altogether....wait for it.

I had a conversation with Gabriel recently. That is if you consider a chat on Whatsapp a proper conversation. We were griping about how schools seem to have lost their focus on character building and the cultivation of morals. It's all about results, results and nothing but results. We guess that the teachers do have the key performance indicators to meet but the question is whether they are sacrificing the character building of the children in the process. I seriously think that a lot of this focus has to do with the parents. Competitive parents do give the teachers pressure. Another issue is whether we are attracting the right talent to the teaching profession. Are teachers as caring as they used to be? Are parents even concerned if their children are developing the right values as they learn? What are they really learning?

I am glad Xavier and Keane are at Endeavour. Their school values are: EDP=I2C. E is for Endeavour, the name of the school. D=Diligence, P=Perseverance, I=Integrity, I=Innovation, C=Compassion. Xavier knows this by heart. I'm proud that he holds these values to himself. He could articulate that Keane does not have integrity by copying answers from the back of his assessment book.

I can see some changes coming out from the Ministry of Education. As a parent, I am glad that there are changes. We have to build the character in our children! Academic results can only bring you so far in life. The most important thing we have to focus on as parents or caregivers is the ability to arm our children, our future generation, with the necessary tools for them to thrive and succeed. Succeed in their own way, not ours. Succeed in achieving what they set out to accomplish, not what we want them to accomplish. Succeed in making their lives meaningful and being able to do the same for future generations. That is how mankind can survive, failing which humanity may be lost eventually.

I have another interesting story on integrity but shall save that for next time. Later......

I'm back!

It has been more than 3 months since I last posted an entry. When I logged in today, I was surprised that I had more than 3000 hits. I realize that the post on Resorts World and public service were more popular.

I shall attempt to keep this up but since I have an actual full time job that feeds me, it will still have to be an attempt. I do have my priorities right, even though it may be at a bare minimum level.

To those who stumbled upon my blog by chance, do give me an opportunity to share my thoughts or at least entertain you. To those who are very patient with my inconsistency, I shall remain eternally grateful for your support.

Cheers!!

Public service and integrity

Recently there were 2 pieces of news which are grabbing headlines. Both are very different yet similar. One is about cleaning hawker centres and another about a grisly double murder. Both involve public servants.

One of the most important requirement for being a public servant is the ability to be a cut above others in terms of honesty and integrity. Your ability determines how far you can go but honesty and integrity, in my humblest opinion, determines whether you should be there in the first place. Yes, we are humans after all and humans are imperfect. I don't think anyone expects politicians or public servants to be perfect. The expectation, I guess, is for them to carry out their duties while holding their heads up high.

Does this mean that public servants will no longer be allowed to have their own private lives? To a certain degree, yes. You can maintain privacy but you must bear in mind that your life may be subject to scrutiny at any time. This is especially so in today's technologically advanced world. Access to information on the internet is very easy and whatever you do can be captured on a camera and uploaded for one and all to see. This cannot be taken for granted and must be on everyone's mind, politician or commoner alike.

That being said, do we maintain our integrity and honesty only to avoid being caught on camera? I think the motivation for good behaviour should stem from the heart and desire to be good instead of the need to avoid being caught misbehaving. That makes all the difference. If you have the right motivation, you will not fear being caught in the first place. If you force yourself to behave in a certain manner in order to conform, you will get caught out eventually. 纸包不住火，真金不怕火。

The most important guiding principle for everyone is to be true to yourself and choose to do something which you genuinely believe in for the right reason.

Swimming lessons and nasi lemak

The boys started swimming lessons at Yishun Swimming Complex last Sunday. They had their second this morning. I have not been to a public swimming pool in many years, more than 20 in fact. I'm not being atas....I just don't have a reason to go to a pool unless we were staying at a hotel.

 

The boys have group training with a certain Mr Yeow who is a coach with the Singapore Swimming Academy. $90 a month for each. They get a pair of goggles and a swimming cap. Not too bad. There's a play pool with slides. The boys go to that pool after lesson for about 15minutes. I think they secretly enjoy the play time after swimming lesson more than the lesson itself!!

 

 

We went a bit earlier today and the boys messed around in the pool before lessons started. 

 

 

They have been learning how to kick and get accustomed to being in the water. Xavier can swim by himself with the aid of a board. He is learning how to swim without the board. Keane and Ryan are still learning how to kick the proper way.

 

Swimming is a survival skill which every person should have......

After swimming we went to Sembawang Shopping Center for lunch. There is a new restaurant which sells nasi lemak called My Nasi. It's the second attempt by the Paradise group at the same location. It was previously a Kungfu Paradise restaurant. The food was not nice and much lesser value for money than what is available at the food court or even at Aston's. I can see the nasi lemak heading in the same direction unless they make some changes. The first thing they should do is to train the staff to serve the food faster. There was a long queue although the restaurant was not full because the staff took a long time to serve the food. Secondly the otah should not be served in the tiny leaf it comes in. The otah is not big but it is a relatively decent size. However it is served in a leaf that is not much bigger than the otah itself. This gives the impression that the otah is very small. Better to serve the otah without the leaf or with the traditional sized leaf. Thirdly the chili needs to be improved. It's neither very hot nor very sweet. In other words, it lacks character. The oil from the chili was seeping out to the bottom of the plate, snaking beneath the rice.

The only thing that makes me think that the restaurant has a hope of surviving is that I see someone looking vaguely like Eldwin Chua, the CEO of Paradise Group which owns this restaurant and the Kungfu Paradise, in the restaurant, helping out to clear tables. It is probably someone who looks very much like him but at least it appears to be someone from higher management. The people who own the business must have a hand in the business to make it viable. The good thing is the change in concept without much change in the décor or set up gives the restaurant owners a second chance of getting out of a lose making lease commitment. I wish them the best of luck!

Lazy weekend

We didn't do much this weekend. We watched Fast & Furious and Fast Five on Friday night and ended up going to bed at 3am on Saturday morning. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift wasn't as good as The Fast and The Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious so we were a bit apprehensive when we embarked on the 4th movie. It ended up being very much worth the late night.

Father and son walking

The boys slept in on Saturday and Sunday. It was Captain America that kept them awake on Saturday night.

On Sunday we took a slow walk to Sembawang MRT for a train ride to Woodlands. We left our home after 12pm and figured that parking would be a serious challenge at Causeway Point. We were right. When we arrived at Causeway Point, we could see a long queue of cars waiting to enter the car park. Although the train ride would have cost more than the parking, it saved us an inordinate amount of time. Plus the boys were hungry.




We had lunch at Ichiban Sushi in Causeway Point and stopped by Secret Chamber to pick up some Lego pieces. I chose a Grand Prix Racer for myself while the boys selected the following:

Xavier - Legends of CHIMA Eglor's Twin Bike
Keane - Legends of CHIMA Nest Dive
Ryan - Creator Super Racer




Xavier's Lloyd ZX

Ryan's Ninja Kai

Keane's Laval

Any surprise on the selection of key chains? The key chains are now fixed onto their school bags. We are wondering how long they will stay on the bags.



We then went to Gelare for ice-cream. Xavier loves his Cookie Dough and Keane his Cookies and Cream. Ryan is not a fan of ice-cream. Daddy and Mummy had our much needed cups of coffee.








What remains to be seen is the first day of school after a 4 week break. Wish us luck!!!!

Random thoughts

A friend told me that I have this tendency to come up with random thoughts. I have never given it much thought but tried to do an inventory of my thoughts after I received that comment. I realize that I had to agree with him. I can be thinking of what I'm supposed to do in the afternoon but then the thought of lunch will come in. Yes, you may say that I'm probably trying to schedule my day. How about thinking about my facial appointment this afternoon and then about how much I need to go on vacation by myself? Again, you might say there is link.

I am a person who cannot manage lists. I can start a list but I never ever come back to that list. When I was dating someone many years ago, I was looking for what I thought then were things to spice up the relationship. I made up a list of things that we should do as a couple. I wrote it down and then we embarked on this journey to accomplish these tasks. Obviously we never completed the tasks on that list. I forgot about going back to the list and called off the relationship some time after for some other reason. When I look back today, 20 years on, my perspective on that relationship has totally changed. I can only use 2 words "So juvenile!!!!" on the me then.

Lego Supercar

I learned that I'm easily bored. I need to have a very clear objective or final goal to stay focused. And the objective has to be challenging. For example I can stay up the whole night to finish up a novel or to complete putting together Lego's Supercar (which I just found out to be a retired product!!!!). This now brings me to my next challenge of putting together Lego's Extreme Cruiser. I've put it off for a few months now. Time to get to work.



Challenging is when a lot of people say it's too hard or it's very unconventional. I like to be able to tell myself that I am better today than I was yesterday. The way I do that is to always do new things. Yes, yes, some people will say that I am a show off. I do not deny that. But I blatantly show off only to my pals and blame it on my Teochew genes! I would add a smiley behind this but I don't know how to do it yet. (How to show off like that?!?!?)

I lose interest unless the topic on hand is very intriguing. What fascinates me is even more random. I am intrigued by the cultural revolution in China, the thoughts of the Dalai Lama, the mafia in the US, army defence strategy, Lego, Mother Teresa, etc. I'm trying to illustrate the broadness of it all.

Why am I writing about random thoughts? I see a bit of myself in Xavier where this is concerned. Xavier is a very curious child. He can jump from one topic to another very quickly. He gets bored very easily. He can read a few pages of a book and give up on it if it doesn't grip him from the start. On the other hand, he can complete Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan in a few days. He devoured the entire 5 book series of Fablehaven by Brandon Mull in less than a month. He gave up on The Hobbit after less than a chapter. He didn't even start on The Hardy Boys but has completed all of The Famous Five. When he is into something, he gets into it in a big way. He will beg, plead, bug or manipulate his way into us buying the entire set in any series of books that he likes. Or he can eat otah for lunch and dinner for 5 consecutive days, only to give up after a tummy ache.

He saw me making an entry yesterday and asked me why I blogged. I told him that it is to leave something behind so that I can remember my thoughts years from now and for him to see my thoughts if he comes to the blog in future. He got all excited and wanted to update his blog but gave up after all of 5 minutes. That's my boy.

Hello, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.....crazy!

The silent cat has struck again! This time it has struck a chord with Singaporeans who are Kitty crazy. I still don't understand the fascination with a cat without a mouth.

I learnt about the new Hello Kitty series of plush toys when I noticed a colleague having McDonald's for breakfast recently. Let's call him Bruce. Bruce had been having breakfast from McDonald's every Thursday for a few weeks, all in the name of love. Not love for McDonald's but for his fiancé who is a Hello Kitty fan. He was collecting all the Hello Kitty plush toys which can be bought at S$4.60 with the purchase of a value meal or at S$10 without a meal. A new plush is introduced every Thursday. He doesn't even like the cat. This week was meant to be the last week he has breakfast from McDonald's. This week is when they launch the special black coloured Kitty called The Singing Bone Kitty. (The cat cannot sing so the bones had to step up???)

Bruce's plans went awry when tons of other people started out earlier than him. The toy goes on sale from 12am on Thursday morning at 24 hour outlets. Fans were queuing way on Wednesday night. He went to 2 outlets and staff at both outlets had to turn people away when the queue became longer than the supply of the plush toy. He then promised his fiancé to go to outlets that open at 7am way before opening time - 5am. Alas! There were people who were earlier than him! Apparently news of the long queue spread and everyone went to queue earlier than usual. And the queues were again longer than the number of toys available. Lucky for Bruce, fiancé's friend was lucky enough to have bought 2 pieces!! I cannot imagine his fate if the set was incomplete!!!

This phenomenon hit the headlines on The Straits Times this morning. Apparently there were disputes and police were involved at one McDonald's outlet. The funny thing is that not all in the queue were there for the love of the Kitty. Some were there for the love of money. This obsession for limited editions of the cat is obviously a good chance for people with too much time on their hands to make a quick buck. Some of the plush toys went on sale on the internet and after browsing, I came across some sites which had advertisements for the toys. The cats were going from S$20 to S$250.

Is the cat really that cute? Are the toys really that worth collecting? Worth is subjective and one's man meat is truly another's poison. I received a pair of Hello Kitty plush toys as a present before but I don't remember where they are now. I must have given them away. I don't remember the person who gave them to me but the cats must have been worth a lot to him or her. Unfortunately these cats do not strike a chord with me. Can they strike any chord at all without a voice?

The moment the words "limited edition" are used, the value of something goes up. This is pure economics - demand and supply. Low supply matched with high demand result in high price. That price may not be just monetary in many cases. Some people pay with time and effort while others pay with hurt and pain. I'm not just referring to the Hello Kitty plush toys here. If you are in love with a special someone (low supply) who is very attractive (high demand), you may end up paying a price by getting hurt and feeling pain in the process of trying to capture the heart of this special someone. But if you think it's worth it, no one can say you are doing something wrong or something silly. No one can tell you that it's not worth it because that's the price YOU are willing to pay, not THEM.

The pursuit of happiness comes with a price but the reward is indeed priceless. To one and all, I say - to each his own. As long as you are happy, no one can say you are crazy.