Rainy day.

It poured all day today. I went running anyway, hooray for me. My running partner didn’t really want to run in the rain, but she hadn’t pooped in 2 days and really needed to go.

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In Singapore, the new school year starts in January and Vince is starting K1 which is the first year they start really drilling skills in preparation for Primary 1 (there is another year, K2, in between). One is expected to read and write pretty well by the time you get to Primary 1.

Anyhow, Vince just got a new teacher who is pretty strict and who makes you stand up at the board to write things (like the word “Wednesday”) in front of the whole class and if you don’t do it right, you get scolded. (This is a pretty standard approach in Singapore.) This, understandably is driving Vince crazy. He just clung to me in fear this morning. He has been going to this school for a year and there are only 2 classrooms, so all the teachers know him and know how uncharacteristic this is for him to be sobbing before class.

I did speak to the teacher and she says that he is doing fine. Anyways, he didn’t get much sleep last night and didn’t have a good breakfast and when I picked him up after school, he said he had had a good day at school and seemed happy to be with his friends. So we’ll see how it goes…

Jeremy and I were feeling pretty smug last year when Vince loved his Nursery 2 experience at the same school and we said, ha ha, no need to send him to the American School (which easily costs 10x as much moola), he’s doing fine! He was learning Chinese, science, reading and math and having a blast. This year the Asian system is biting us in the ass, well at least for today. Jeremy mentioned this anxiety issue to his Chinese co-workers today during lunch and they all laughed and said that there is a saying in Chinese about being “hung at the chalkboard” – that feeling that you get when you are standing in front of the whole class and you don’t know the answer to the question the teacher is asking. Hmmm, sweet and encouraging system, eh?

The day got better and better after a rough start and ended with a bath and a family viewing of the Wizard of Oz.

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