Colors

Fall colors are here. Two days ago, the trees lining the road to Iron Horse Middle School were decidedly green although a couple were starting to change colors. This morning, many were splendid hues of yellow, orange and flaming red. Beautiful!

Such Stress

So we had a recent scare when dad went at 9 pm as usual to pick up Nic from marching band practice and he came back half an hour later hurrying me to find a doctor because she could be having a heart attack and was lying in the car. Not a good thing to be told in the middle of the night as you are about to retire to bed. So a frantic search on the website and we rushed to the nearest regional medical center. Turned out she had been lying on the field in school for 3 hours or so trying to breathe. Hard to believe no one called for that many hours. I wonder what an American mom or dad would have done in situations like this.

Because she was young and could not breathe, she was rushed in so at least we did not have to wait in the emergency room. Many hours later, she was discharged with a "we don't know the cause, but it could be some allergen that triggered a kind of asthma attack" or something like that (I am paraphrasing). It was a very long and tiring night, watching her go through at least 4 different tests and trying to stay awake.

So it was with some trepidation that I watched last night's marching band competition at Cupertino. This was the second competition in two weeks. Last Saturday was at Diablo Valley and then she had the attack on Tuesday. And I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the band went through their strides without a tiny figure suddenly swooning onto the grass. CalHigh was the last of the Class 2 bands to perform so it was already pretty late and they had had no dinner till the performance was over.

Last night's competition was a lot tougher just from the sheer number of bands competing. We left after all the bands had performed but before the awards were announced. I must say it was pretty impressive. The kids put in long hours to come to this stage and they were all good. Especially the Class 1 bands each of which had lots of members and color guards. And pretty much flawless displays. It was fascinating to watch how well the 3 drum majors of the Class 1 bands synchronised their moves. Kudos to all the marching bands.

Here are some pictures and a video of CalHigh marching band at Diablo.

Pardon the shakiness of the video. Hard to keep still when holding a small digital camera and trying to ward off a half man constantly trying to flash his palm across the lens and avoiding a fidgety blond boy just in front of oneself. And next week, the band is off to Gilroy. It'll be a long drive for us to watch the kids compete; we may car pool with Nic, Keng and some other parents from CalHigh. Would have been nice to mix it with shopping but no such luck. First Tee has priority over spending money...

Freaky Fall

The rains of fall are here. The first rain fell just a couple of days ago and today has been wet all day. Soon the brown hills and ranges will turn a pretty shade of green and before you know it, the leaves will turn gloriously gold and red. Yesterday was a beautiful day, sunshine and warm temperatures so my colleague and I sat out in the open at a small Indian restaurant to catch up over lunch. One of the very rare times I get out of the office to eat. You would never guess that the very next day would be so cold and wet. I went to pick Nic up from school this afternoon and saw the kids trudging home, some with umbrellas but many with just their hoodies over their heads and getting all wet. One was still in a t-shirt. He must have very good chi to be able to take the cold this way.

Guess I won't be heading back to Asia in November as I originally thought I would. There is no real reason to make the trip and there are too many projects going on.

I took videos of the CalHigh marching band at the competition last week but have not uploaded them. The school came in second for their group. Probably not what the band teacher was hoping for but it was not bad. I must say the marching bands here are quite interesting and good. Different from the way bands perform in Singapore - here there are color guards that don't play any instruments but dance and wave banners or flags and may perform some acrobatics. The band formations are also different than what I have seen in Singapore. Wish YY and the others are here to share in the experience. Tomorrow night the competition is in San Jose. We are better prepared now with thick clothing - it gets really chilly sitting there watching the bands.

Not much to write about these days. Just routine stuff that would really be boring. Maybe I should start waxing philosophical. But I am whimsically sad about my girls up north - I feel hopeless and useless when it comes to helping them get their footing.

Marching Madly

Here are some pics from the Parent's Preview of the CalHigh Marching Band performances.

Sorry about the messiness - really hard to align the photos. In a while, we are off to Diablo Valley College to the competition. Maybe they will win. By the way, the good looking fella with the closed eyes - that's Nic's older son, Clarence.