Telescope

Tahir bought this telescope from Walmart hoping to catch some stars and constellations, hoping to get his son to discover the solar system, to discover astronomy...and yes, he has yet to get it to work. Seriously, I haven't get to see anything through the lens yet. So we'll see when, and I really meant WHEN my dear husband will get this to work again...

The Trump Blog

Donald Trump has a blog... yes The Apprentice's Donald Trump.


http://donaldtrump.trumpuniversity.com/

Cooler weather

Cooler weather are expected in the days to come, as the cool air travels from north down to south of US. So expect chilly mornings and nights from Friday through the weekend. Got to standby our sweaters and light winter jackets...

The official day of Fall.

The official day of Fall is Thursday, 22 September 2005. Autumn has begin in some northern states with the leaves of trees changing to brown. I am looking forward to this.

However, a tornado watch is in effect due to Rita and I'm not looking forward to this, if it's coming to Mobile's way.

A New Life is Born

Amidst the wrath of nature, a new and beautiful creation is being born onto this planet. Muhammad Alman, the firstborn of Omel and Nan was delivered on 5th September at 2121 hours weighing 2.765 kg. Omel is Tahir's little sister. Yes, she has been the baby of the family and now she has a baby of her own. We hope all is well with this little cutie and to the proud parents... Congratulations!!! Welcome to many sleepless nights!!! But I'm sure you will feel heavenly blissful knowing that you have created this being from yourselves...cheers!!!

Rita has reached Category 5!!!

I just pray that God is merciful to everyone on this hurricane soil.

Rita is reaching Category 4 status

There is now mandatory evacuation for people living in Galveston, Texas. But what I find really heartbreaking are those evacuees from New Orleans who were brought to Houston, Texas and now had to be evacuated again. Just listening to the news makes me hurricane-weary, what's more those lives who are directly affected by them. Rita is said to reach the coast of Texas by Wed late night or Thurs morning. I'm sure Mobile will be hit by rain or downpour as well during the late week. If you watch the news, there are daredevils who would stand to watch the waves in the thunderstorm at the edge of the sea. The media would also go all out to capture the moment - big waves and wind hitting furiously at shore with at least one reporter braving it. I just hope they have good insurance on their own lives!

For more information, check the following website for updates;-

The Weather Channel - http://www.weather.com/

New Threat : Hurricane Rita

Enough said.

An ocean wave crashes over a sightseer in Key West, Florida, September 20, 2005 as Hurricane Rita brushes past the area. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)from http://www.comcast.net

Fatigue and the future

I have been so tired. Maybe it's the remnants of my jet lag. Otherwise I don't know what it is and I am definitely not p******* if that is what you think. Been sleeping and staying awake at all the wrong time.

It is coming to the end of summer but it is still hot outside and infested with insects. There is this bug that the people here called love bugs or something because there are always two of them stuck with each other. They come in twos. Mate for life!

Guess fall is creeping in soon as the new fall collections are out and it's clearance for the summer wear. Daytime hours is getting shorter as maghrib is more like 6.23 pm compared to 7.58 pm in June.

Afzal is back in school and been telling me about this boy who keep physically hurting him. This boy is not much bigger than Afzal. I have told his teacher but I guess she has not seen this chap doing anything yet. Even when we told Afzal to do something about it like telling Kevin off, or 'telling him that he does not want to play with him,' Afzal just do not want to do it. Afzal is not traumatised by the incidents but behaviours like slapping, pulling the ear and kicking is definitely not acceptable. I have to go to his school and observe myself then or even talked to this Kevin.

Oh btw, I have written a simple children's story in Malay and I have printed it out on powerpoint. No illustrations yet but maybe I'll draw myself. Any publishers out there who is interested?!

Anyway, I realised that though Afzal can speak fluent Malay, it is conversational. When I started formally teaching him Malay, he is stumped and he can only think of the words in English instead of Malay. It is because he has taken Mandarin since playgroup as we wanted him to learn the language as we can teach him Malay ourselves. However, since we are in the US now, we do not know any Mandarin, therefore we have to double up on the Malay for him. This is just some of the tough decisions that we parents make.

I've brought some Malay books that we bought in Johor recently when we went back home and I've also bought some Islamic books in English online for Afzal and ourselves. Hopefully, we can homeschool him on Malay and Islam, Insya Allah.

The origins of Hurricane names.

This article is from Ask Yahoo! at http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20041105.html

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has drawn up alphabetical lists of male and female names to be used as hurricane designations from now until 2009. Unfortunately, the NHC doesn't explain the methodology it used to come up with these names.
According to this comprehensive hurricane site, hurricanes began officially receiving names in 1950. For two years, they were stuck with standard call sign names -- Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, etc. Between 1953 and 1978, for reasons we are unwilling to surmise, hurricane names were exclusively female. In 1979, the situation became more progressive, and male names were added to the mix.
Hurricanes only receive a name once their status is elevated from tropical storm. The names of a few particularly destructive hurricanes, such as 1992's Andrew, (and I would like to add Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina) have been permanently retired for reasons of sensitivity.
Why do hurricanes have names in the first place? According to the NHC, the use of "short, distinctive given names" is quicker and less subject to error than using latitude-longitude identification methods.

Katrina Aftermath in Mobile

An uprooted tree within the compound of our apartment crashed onto the gate. Though Mobile was not as devastated as New Orleans or Biloxi, Katrina did give the residents here a scare. We are thankful that we are back in Singapore when Katrina hit but for those Singaporeans who were still in Mobile, it was a wild gust of wind and thunderstorm on the night of Monday, Aug 29th. It was reported that the wind speed were 80 mph or 130 kmph. We returned to Mobile on the evening of September the 4th. And as our plane were moving over Texas and into Alabama, the change in the clouds and weather was significant. The sky from Dallas Fortworth Airport was clear and the clouds looked like little white shrubs sporadically scattered across the clear Dallas sky. But it was not so as the plane entered Mobile. It was as if the plane was moving into a kingdom of clouds... it was mountainous huge of swirly white and greyish clouds. It was like "kepulan kabu-kabu putih dan kelabu yang menggunung". When the plane entered the clouds, we could just see misty white stuff outside and as the plane was lowering its altitude, there was turbulent. It was pretty scary as we couldn't see much outside. There was slight rain too. When we drove back to our apartment, we could see fallen trees and damage billboards. As some traffic lights had been blown away, there was a police officer to help navigate traffic at affected road junctions. The pawn shop just outside our apartment had its roof blown away and the three gas stations at the junction were closed. We found out later that gasoline is a scarce commodity now and there is a cap of $20 for every pump. There was also a state of curfew in our area. Except for those who are working, everyone else has to be home from dusk till dawn (ie. 6pm) until further notice. Public schools in Mobile County are closed until September 12 so Afzal will be home until then. As I am writing this, the news from tv reported that the next hurricane - Hurricane Maria (of all name) is lurking in the Bermuda but the good news is Maria will not be heading towards land. However, they are taking caution to tropical storm Nate that is moving towards Florida again. It is definitely a Hurricane Depression in this region.

My neighbour Ida and the rest who were here during Katrina were without electricity for 2 and half days. This meant they were hot, in total darkness at night (except for some burning candles), fridge could not store food and they cannot use the stove or make hot water. Though they had water, it was noted that water had to be boiled in certain parts of Mobile. So for precautionary sake, they bought water from the supermarket during the first few days. Ming, a Thai housewife of one of my husband's colleague came to the rescue when she managed to collect some woods and make fire to warm food the first day after the hurricane. It's really survival at this time. Later on, the families bought themselves a barbecue grill and had to rely on grill food for that 2.5 days before electricity was restored. The halal store across the street were without electricity for 4 days and his frozen foods had to be thrown away. Business is really down. Even for Walmart in which we saw many foods not being stock up including their own plastic bags.

For Ida, it was definitely an event that she did not want to experience. For us, we are just thankful to God that we were back home in Singapore during that time. We hope that for the rest of our stay here, God will continue to protect us and the families who are seeking rezeki far away from home.

Some news of Hurricane Katrina in Mobile.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina.alabama/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/mobile/index.html

Venn and Graphs

What I like about the school is that they welcome parents with open arms. In fact, the principal, class teacher, parent and child signed a "contract" in which the signed individuals agree on the responsibilities each has and will work closely towards the mission statement of the school. Their newsletter encourages parents to come and visit the school, have lunch with their child and volunteer in the class or at school. So I have signed up to volunteer myself.

I visited Afzal for lunch last Friday and stayed in the class after that. Mrs Smith told me that she will be teaching them graphs... that will be interesting. I saw the pocket chart containing a square, circle and triangle. The children were asked to choose their favorite shape. Mrs Smith flashed cards that contain the children's names to see whether the children can identify their names ... a bit too simple if based on the Singapore system but for some children, this is their first time in a school environment. The children made their choices by putting their namecard on the pocket slot under their favorite shape. After everyone had done it, Mrs Smith went on to explain most and least, and how you can see it from the graphs. Then she moved on with their favorite letters A, B and C and went through the same routine.

I heard Mrs Smith explaining to the children that yesterday they learned about the Venn... that's marvellous I thought and so when we reached home, I asked Afzal to explain what was the Venn that he learned yesterday. I drew two overlapping circles but Afzal said no. He drew a circle and told me that all those who takes the car to and from school goes into that circle. Those who takes bus and other modes of going home are outside the circle. So he told me that he is outside the circle cos he takes the school bus. Asked him to explain more, and that is all he could tell me for now. But I liked what he is doing in school. They even have a review or reflective session in which the children are encouraged to 'write' something in their journal. Some children draw something, others doodle all over their book. I saw Afzal's journal. It was the first page and it contained some words that he already knew how to write by memory... words like boy, box, go, see etc...I didn't get to see all that he wrote but I'll get to take a peek at it one day.

Each of the kindergarten teachers has their own style and each of them does something a bit different for their own classes. I saw what another class did. The teachers pasted their works on the wall outside their classroom based on the book "If you take a mouse to school". There was a chart divided into two parts. On the left side "what mouse brought to school", and on the right side, "what we brought to school". The teacher circled the same things that mouse and the children brought to school and write the word "same". Besides language, the teachers were teaching a very basic maths concept, and I am impressed cos it looks fun and just the sort of things we should be doing.

In Farzana's grade 1 class, her teacher was teaching rhymes, but it's more so to get the children understand ending sounds. Farzana's mom, Sarina, was pleased too because she felt that the school goes a bit more in depth as compared to the "touch and go" situation back home. I'm sure there are pros and cons, but it's good to expose our children to their way of teaching as well. I also see a lot of language experience approach in the kindergarten and grade 1 classes. For Farzana's class, they read "The purple cow" and the children are encouraged to write about a purple animal that they have never seen before. Farzana wrote, "I never saw a purple cat."

Bcos the school is emphasising manuscript handwriting, Afzal's "l" and "u" have a little curved tail at the end now. After 5 days in school, I felt that he is writing much better, in terms of having all his letters on the line and the lowercase letters not going beyond the middle dotted line. I have never forced Afzal to write properly bcos I just want him to enjoy writing first. He seemed to be enjoying writing now and at home, we have been doing language experience approach rather than writing in workbooks. Afzal loves it because he wants to write stories as he plans to publish his books and open a bookstore in Australia. Yup his ambition now is to be a police officer, an author and a bookstore owner and mum is the cashier. Yeah...we've got things planned out, didn't we? While it's still burning hot, I am encouraging every single bit of writing experience that he wants to do :)

Books used in the K classes in the first week.

Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten Author: Joseph Slate Illustrator: Asley Wolff

If You Take A Mouse To School
Author: Laura Numeroff
Illustrator: Felicia Bond

Organised Chaos

Organised chaos is how I would describe the early morning situation at school. Everyone enters by the side door that leads to the gym and cafeteria. Those who do not wish to eat breakfast or already had theirs at home head to the gym and those who are having breakfast will head to the cafeteria. The gym and cafeteria is just side by side and the entrance is nearest to the gym. The queue for breakfast is long and will continue pass the gym and through the door to the outside. At least, there is no flag-raising ceremony or anthem singing. Those in the gym had to sit quietly according to grade level and when they have enough students I suppose (because some of the teachers of the class have other duty to do and they don't take attendance at the gym), the staff in charge in the gym will get the students in line and one teacher or staff will lead the students to their grade classes crossing paths with the breakfast queue and that's when a lot of 'chaos' occurs. The 5 kindergarten classes are clustered together, so one teacher will bring all the kindergarten kids to their classes. And if their class teacher is there, they will go to their classroom. If not, they either wait outside their classroom and for those students who seemed clueless, they were all put into one class. The weird thing is the teachers do not make the students wear name tags. If the kids have name tags, at least, whoever is with them is able to identify their names or the class that they are supposed to be in. If the child is unsure, the staff brings him to each classroom and asked, "Is he yours?" So teacher will say "Oh yes" or "Ah, ah, no" and move on to the next class. So that's totally inefficient I thought. What if the teacher forgets the face? Especially when it was only like the second day of school. Sometimes a kid gets out of his line and gets lost, that's when there's more chaos. Once he or she starts crying, you don't get anything out from the child and he or she probably wants only his mommy and daddy. And there's no name tag to know which class the child is in.

The going home time...what I like which I think is great and Singapore can adopt. Walkers leave at 3.10 pm and go out through the front door. Aftercare and school bus will leave to the left exit of the school building and car pick up is on the right side. There are two lanes for the car pick up and when the car moves in, they will pass through a roundabout and wait by the side in two lanes. Each car will put the name of their child on a paperplate (they should also put the grade level) and put it on their windscreen. If it's a young child, the teacher herself will escort the child to the car. Parents are not allowed to leave their car (unless it's a rainy day and they need to bring the umbrella for their child). Once the child is loaded, the car moves off and the next car waits. The reason for the two lanes so that there is no bottle neck in case a child is not out yet. So at least one line can still keep moving. I think this is great because so often in Singapore, there are no car lanes and inconsiderate parents simply jammed up the roads and it can be very dangerous, not only for the children but for other road users.

For those leaving by bus, my son's teacher stick a yellow post-it with the bus no and paste a clear cellophane across the post-it on his t-shirt. One teacher will take all the kids who are going home by school bus and move to the exit for the bus. There are three buses, so there would be someone to ensure these kids take the right bus. The only thing is the number on the bus is too long...like 2000-83, 2004-35 etc. Thank goodness, there are only three schoolbuses and hopefully Afzal will not hop onto the wrong one.

The Yellow School Bus

That's Afzal's school bus and we were tailing it from behind after school. We missed the bus in the morning and we were not even late. The bus was supposed to be at the designated pick up point at 7.19 am and we were there at 7.15 am and yet the bus was early and didn't wait. But since we were ready to follow the bus to school so Tahir drove both Afzal and Farzana.

When we tailed the bus on the way home, the bus went through some bumpy route and it got my heart shaken a little as the bus tipped left and right when it went through a tiny lane. As a mother, I think if my husband is not working, he should definitely send and pick our son up. That looked quite precarious. But both Farzana and Afzal enjoyed the bus ride because I think it was a new and different experience for them. Afzal admitted that he enjoyed school better here than in Singapore...too much fun and no work...hmmm I don't know, but I'm glad he is happy. In fact, I think I missed him at home.

First Day At School!

It was the first day of the new school term. Both Afzal and Farzana are looking great in their white and beige uniform. Another milestone in the history of these kids. For Afzal, at least, while I was still lingering in his class, he actually told me,"Why are you still here, mummy?" That's a change from the usual whiny "I want my mummy in class" when I sent him to childcare in Singapore a few months back. Maybe it's the coming of age, maybe it's more fun here. At least, he is more independent now and is looking forward to school.

A new friend was made. I was surprised at the friendliness of the White girl. She actually mistook Farzana for her friend Helen and was embarrassed after the phototaking that Farzana was not Helen. But we made them friends. Farzana is one of Tahir's colleague daughter, and she is in grade 1 while Afzal is in kindergarten. That girl, I think her name is Casey or something, is from Grade 4. By the way, that cute little girl in blue is Sabrina, Farzana's little sis.

We came back during Afzal's lunchtime at 12.45pm. Afzal and a petite little girl named Hope were Mrs Smith's little helpers today. Hope was the first to stand in line and Afzal was made to stand by the door to let the other kids out. A lot of disciplining was going on as Mrs Smith mentioned that they have to get the students used to the routine. We headed to the cafeteria and though Afzal had brought his lunch pack, he still wanted to queue for the food. Since I've already informed Mrs Smith about his dietary limitations, we were there just to see what was the situation like. It may be tough but I think we just needed to educate the teachers and staff a little about our religious obligation and I expect that constant gentle reminders maybe needed.

We started by writing a letter to Mrs Smith, as if it was written by Afzal to introduce himself. It was more so to explain about how we write our names - I mean sometimes it's hard to explain that we don't have a first, middle and last name. Also, the fact that we have certain dietary limitations. We have taught Afzal about halal and non-halal food but just in case.

After getting their trayful of food, the children move to the designated tables and the serving was in fact quite large for these little kids. The works would include taco with meat sauce, some kind of colored rice, corn, cake, chips, choice of salad, peach, apple, juice and milk. After their meal, they were expected to put all thrash on the tray, wait for instructions, before they moved in one line to put their tray away, separating the fork into a "chute". Being kids, they were noisy, some eat, while some doesn't. Then it was loo time before they headed back to class. By the way, the Americans call toilets, restroom.

When the kids came in the morning, we had to fill up a form of how they were going home - by car, school bus, walk or aftercare. Today it was by car but we will get him on the school bus from tomorrow. And it's free. We do not have any school fees to pay as well except for a $5 registration and whatever amount we want to spend on school uniforms and materials. You can buy your uniforms from any departmental stores that sell them. So you can compare prices as well as the designs. Though the color is the same, the girls' uniforms have different styles. Some girls may prefer to wear skirts, others may prefer skorts, pants, jumper, pinafore etc or it's up to you if you want everything. There's not much choices for boys though.

Each grade level has a different material list that includes scissors, crayon, washable markers, composition books, hand sanitizer, disinfectant spray, paper towels, tissue box etc and so far we have spent about $75 on materials and uniforms. We think it's a decent amount bearing in mind that there are no school or transport fees. Lunch is $1.50 unless you are given discount because of your family situation which we doubt we will get that. Also, you don't have to buy lunch if you bring lunch or you can pay 35 cents for a packet of milk or something else that you want. Breakfast... yes breakfast is provided unless you come to school by 7.40am and it's a flat rate of 0.60cents unless you are under financial aid. Formal school starts at 8.20 am until 3.20pm. So that's the gist of my little kid's life in a public school here...

Barnacle Part 2

Me : You are going to school tomorrow.

Son : Is there a lot of work?

Me : This week, just play. Next week, there is work.

Son: Oh Barnacle!

Me : What did you say?

Son : Oh Barnacle!

Me : What does it mean?

Son : It means I don't want to do that.

Barnacle!

Scenario 1
Me : "Afzal, make sure you put your books on the table!"
Son: "Oh Barnacle!"

Scenario 2
Me: "Afzal, go and bathe."
Son: "What a Barnacle!"


Oh what the thing is this Barnacle! It sounded like some bad word, and I knew where the son got it from. Spongebob Squarepants! That yellowish mustard sponge from Bikini Bottom. And I really doubt that Afzal knew what it meant but he used the expression quite convincingly. And here's the meaning of Barnacle from Merriam-Webster:

also called Cirripede , any of a majority of the 1,000 species of marine crustaceans of the subclass Cirripedia. Adults of cirripedes other than barnacles are internal parasites of crabs, jellyfish, starfish, and some other marine invertebrates. They have no popular name. As adults, typical barnacles are covered with calcareous plates and are cemented, head down, to rocks, pilings, ships' hulls, …

Hmm, by saying that, it means "What a parasite!", thus associating me with the Adult Cirripede - an internal parasite. Personally, it's does not sound too harmful but I think he should be made known of what it could mean or lead to. Should I wait till he is slightly older to explain...any comments?

A Hot Summer

We went to the swimming pool yesterday, only the second time since we came. All the kids were enjoying themselves... and all 9 kids in the pool were Singaporean. No one else except us. The summer can be really hot and though we were there at 5.30 pm, the heat was really eating into my skin. Maghrib is only at 7.38 pm meaning it's long daylight, but it's getting shorter... I guess it will be good for us if it's shorter daylight when Ramadan comes, especially being a first timer in a foreign land. I can't imagine how soon Ramadan and Idilfitri will be... and before I know it, it will be time for us to pack and head home...

Looking for that holistic word or words...

Before I rattle about the above, congratulations to my dearest friend Seri and of course Greg who just had their first bouncy baby boy, Dayan Tay. She called me all the way from Singapore to tell me that it was one of the biggest challenges of her life. It's amazing how some women have easy pregnancy tales to tell while others like me and Seri, doesn't. And I'm sure it's just the start of a long road ahead albeit an exciting and nerve-wrecking ones for the new trio.

That's what been getting me these days... for the lack of an all-encompassing word or holistic word that best describes what we, as parents, are doing for our child(ren).

When we talk about homeschooling our child, that's like being a real teacher and creating a classroom-like atmosphere in the home with your only student and teaching all the subjects (and more) that are taught in school at home . But when your child goes to school and you still do some activities with him at home, what do you call that? I mean I don't supervise any homework for now cos there's none but I do activities that I created myself or in which I feel Afzal should be learning. And even when we are doing the home activities, there's lots of disciplining going on as well. Besides "teaching" or "playing" with him, I'm constantly "nagging", "making him conscious of the consequences of his actions", "giving alternative views and opinions", "telling him what's right and wrong", "inculcate in him what's morally right"...blah, blah, blah and then there is the religious aspect that I'm trying to instil in him, "before you eat, let's say this doa", "before you read your book, let's read this doa", "what do you say when you are full?" etc etc and of course I also would like him to be able to speak, read and write Malay, and if he could also dabble with Mandarin and yadda, yadda, yadda.......so what is the "holistic term" that describes what I am doing with my child?

Guess that's the whole crux of the matter. We are parents and we are parenting our child the best we know how and the best we could...including teaching him his abcs, phonics, maths, general knowledge, his mother-tongue and his culture, his religion, what's right, what's wrong, say thank you and please, asking for orders over the counter, paying money and getting the right change, sleeping in his own bed in his own room etc etc and for new mommies, things that may seem simple like breastfeeding is a whole new learning experience for both mother and child which may turn out great or totally screwed (like mine), and for toddlers even peeing right or not peeing in their pants is a great deal of learning, educating, parenting... aren't these all part of home educating and parenting and schooling? ... so what's the fuss am I kicking? Perhaps Greg, yes that's Seri's hubby, described it best when he said, "I'm from the University of Life". Wouldn't that be something you want to give your child as well? The University of Life. Think about it.