When I need to laugh - Part1

Whenever I am down and in need of a real good laugh, all I have to do is remember the two funny incidents in my life and I always will laugh. Guaranteed punya. I thought I might as well pen them down before old age steals the memories away from me.
But I will only share the first story. Second story later.

Story 1 :

I was a cikgu sandaran in Kuching High School (a Chinese-based school) in 1993. I was the form teacher for a Form 4 class, the class that was most likely will not do well in their  SPM and sorry to say, in their  future careers!! (er, if any of them accidentally found this blog, pls do leave a comment and tell me what you do right now, ya cos I might be wrong about you guys back then. )
Anyway, one fine day I was asked by the headmaster to update these kids' information cards - you know the ones where one of the questions were about our ambitions etc.
Apparently, some of these kids' infos were not updated for like 2 years or so.
One girl, I asked her what clubs she was in that year, she said nothing. I was about to dismiss her when she quickly told me there was one club she would love to be in but had no confidence to join.
Me : which one?
She : Moo-gic
Me : What? You have that club here? (I was thinking Magic)
She : Got but I scared one.
Me : Well, you should be. My school never had that club. (and out of the blue, I just laughed!)
She : Teacher, apa lu ketawa?
Me : (trying to be serious) Ok... so you want to join Magic Club but you scared. Mmm.. I wonder why (and I laughed again!)
She : (laughing too) No, teacher. Moo-gic, not mayy-gic. MOOGIC.
And then it dawned on me what she was saying : MUSIC!!
Both of us laughed!

My next student was a boy named Alex. And my God, this one was one naughty boy. He and the other one (I forgot his name) never got along. All they did was FIGHT. But I tolerated Alex better than the other one because he can be funny too.

Me: So Alex, what is your cita-cita?
Alex : Security
Me :  ???
ALex : like itu guard but jaga swimming pool
Me : Oh, lifeguard. (I could already hear laughter at the back of my own head! And out of curiosity I asked why he wanted to become one)
Alex : Macam bapak saya ma....
Me : But you can do better than that what... (that was me trying to become an encouraging I believe-in-you teacher)
Alex : No lah. Saya tidak pandai. (and in a very broken english he said... ) .... if itu (pointing to his enemy at the back of the class) punya anak mahu drown in the pool, saya no help. Ha... ha... ha  (sinister laugh some more from that Alex!)
Me : (stiffling a laughter, I had to excuse myself from the classroom. And in the school balcony, I could have rolled on the floor laughing! I did not roll on the floor but I laughed so hard, , my eyes were all wet!)

LOL.... those moments in that school will never be forgotten. Too many hilarious stories during my 2-month stint there. :) And sometimes I wonder what happened to some of the kids in that class. The MOOGIC girl had potential if only she socialised a bit.
Alex....I hope he has quit smoking....and not become just a lifeguard. And his enemy, I hope he was never jailed because man, he was Trouble!

How to deal with a tween???

Nina has been giving me pains in the heart lately -- and I have been quite Bersabar until today. Today, I broke down because I feel like I am at my wits' end. If I do A, she might do this, if I do B, she might do that.

When I was 12, I don't think I had given my parents too much trouble. I was a reasonably good girl. I stayed within limits of my parents' rules and regulations.

Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if we had remained in Malaysia. I think it would but we are here already so I really can't dwell on that.

Maybe she is going through a phase and once she's gone past it, things would be better.

Sometimes I feel like I want to blame my husband for "spoiling and indulging" her. Her clothes are from branded stores, her shoes are way too pricey for her age, and just because all her friends in school have BB, she wanted one too and darn it, she eventually got one too! At the same time, he imposed a lot of don'ts in her life. And given her "savviness" in IT,   it's easy for her to "manipulate" us parents in thinking that she is observing the don'ts when she is really not.

I had tried my damn hard to become an understanding mom. To become her friend whom she can talk to about everything. I was young once too, I would tell her. I thought we were okay ...

When she used to have a diary, I gave her all the privacy she wanted and never once I read the contents. Even when I came upon them accidentally, I kept the contents to myself and never judged her. But this time around, I "hacked" into her laptop and what I found, I don't like and I am finding it hard not to judge her.

But it's her exam week and I can't be emotionally stressing her. But I am sad, dissappointed, angry ... I want my sweet child back! Ya Allah, please give me strength .... and show me the right way.

Nina, if you ever read this one day... you really made me cried today.

Amir's "fashion" show

School is almost out here. Four more weeks to go. And only today, for the first time since I got here, I went to Amir's school to give him the much needed moral support a child needs from his/her parents. Finally! I had missed his sports day, international costume day, and his swimming gala and I am so ashamed to admit this really. Especially, when I had never missed any of my children's school activities back in KL,came rain or shine. Even when their sports day was held on a working day, I applied for leave. I NEVER missed any event. But since I came here, I became very calculative that  I had chosen not to attend any activities in their schools just because I can't stand the crazy, unreasonable taxi fares.

Like today, I spent 100 riyal on taxi!! Gila you! That's like a third of our weekly grocery spending. I knew it would cost me but I had enough of "hurting" my children's feelings. My excuse for not attending Amir's other  school event before this - what I told him lah - was because of Imran. He would be running around here and there out of boredom and in the end, I would not be able to focus on his big brother's main event. And most of the times, Amir and Nina would say they understand.

But for Amir's school assembly where his class is doing some songs and dances on fashion and Amir being given some lines to recite out loud (listening to him practising the lines this past week and sounding very British at it!), I promised him I would not miss it for the world.

And I am glad I did. As the kids appeared on stage I could see how their eyes and faces lit up when each of them spotted their parents at the back of the hall. I got teary-eyed a bit actually as I was overwhelmed with guilt for missing his previous performances/participation. And at the end of the show, when all the kids ran down the stage to hug their parents, I am HAPPY that I did not let Amir down.

A few of the pupils did not have their parents there and they looked so heartbroken, I felt sorry for them. One Malay girl, upon noticing that I am Amir's mom, came to me shyly and I felt like hugging her! She told me her mom can't come because "adik demam." I hope it's true because from what I heard, her parents hardly never turned up to other events too. Well, they missed quite a show because her performance was better than Amir's!

Next week is Nina's swimming gala. She said she wants me to come and I said, see first lah. I have to fair what? I had missed Amir's swimming gala but have attended Nina's choir show and Alice the Musical play (both were held at night and the ride was FOC of course courtesy of Papa).

But I told them, next year I will try not to miss anything more. Because Imran will start his school next year and I will ride the FREE school bus at 7am even if the show/event starts at 10am or 12pm, I would not mind the long wait because I am a caring and cheap mom!