Rambling

Due to this being a rainy day, I did not follow the Man and a Half to Amador Valley. The boy still has Chinese and chess classes of course, but there will be no tennis and it is saner to stay home with the teen so we can spend some girl time together. I hope she will go with me to pick up some household essentials. I can't carry them all by myself. But more importantly, I just want to have her with me. Too soon, she will be packed and gone off to college and out of sight for months on end. Sob.

I still have not put in an application to stay on here. What if the company pulls the plug on me and sends us home before we are ready? It would jeopardize the teen's college status here as a resident and I don't think she would fit in NUS. And it will be a real financial stretch to have her stay on here as a foreign student what with two others also in college or planning to re-enter. I don't think it will happen quite so soon - I am holding down two persons' jobs, doing what used to be done by two persons (my predecessor and my ex-supervisor) so in a sense the company's getting its money's worth. I have not been actively looking for another position either. Should probably start soon but there is still so much to do to complete a critical project and stabilize the team even more. I came in to a shell shocked team and though it has been really tough with some, the rest seems to understand my drivers and a few have even asked me to bring them along if I go to another job. Gratifying in a way but of course, that's not how things are done.

I am watching the news and the telecast is about California students in middle school not doing so well in core subjects like reading and math. And seniors not being able to pass the exit exams so they could graduate from high school. Sad. And the governor is cutting school funding massively because the state has a budget crisis. Every school will have less money next year so I think parents are going to be asked to fork out more. One of the culture shocks here has been how much money parents are asked to donate at the beginning of the school year. It amounts to quite a few hundred a child. But this is not a US thing. Other states don't do this. Good thing parents here in Bay Area are by and large financially stable and very active with school participation so they willingly help out.

The teen has done all her exit exams but the school kept calling to ask her to take the Math exam one more time just as a precaution. Because if she for some reason, messes up the last one, there will be no more opportunity to retake without jeopardising her graduation date. She has come around to the idea, I am glad to say. The school is right to be cautious but it takes effort to convince the kids.

And here's wishing Uncle Joshua a very happy birthday. May he have very very many more.

I wonder when we will meet up the family again. Lately, I have been remembering with a lot of nostalgia the food, sights and smells of the little red dot. Some weeks ago, there was a show on happiness and which countries came out in a survey about being the happiest countries in the world. Denmark came out tops and Singapore, surprisingly was not too far behind and was featured - as a rich country with extremely strict laws on just about everything yet the citizens seem to be doing relatively well because the focus is on the 5C's so they tolerate even appreciate the strictness as long as they can go about making money. The show even talked about the infamous caning and how it is done and why it helped keep law and order. An American show seemingly condoning this!? I don't know. The show is somewhat facetious and grosses over things. Oh well, that's entertainment.