Of short stories and languages

While cleaning out Yiu Yiu’s school bag at the beginning of the school holidays, I found a little pink notebook.  On the first few pages, to my pleasant surprise and amusement, were these jottings:

I hope she’ll continue writing and penning down her thoughts – not only will it be fun for me to discover them, but it’s a good avenue for her to express her creativity and improve on her English.  I used to speak to her in English but somehow after she got into Standard One this year, we spoke mostly in Mandarin, to hubby’s dismay.  Firstly, my Mandarin isn’t really up to mark and secondly, by not speaking in English with me, her English may deteriorate so it’s a double whammy.  So now, we made a pact with each other to consciously speak in English, and reprimand one another if one of us starts to speak in Mandarin J

She did not pick up her notebook at all during the school holidays.  We’ve kept her occupied with some revision workbooks to brush up on her BM, the subject that pulled her down substantially in her final exams.  Thank goodness for the babysitter who ensures she does at least 2-3 pages of the workbooks daily, in between time on the iPad.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have done much as I had been so busy at work over the last 2-3 months due to two vacancy gaps that I had not spent any time revising with her.  

It’s just another three weeks before school reopens and we need to hit the “Back to School” promotions at the malls to get her ready for Standard Two.  We don’t need a lot actually, probably just a new school bag and transparent book covers/wrappers.  She had already collected her textbooks before the school holidays, so we don’t need to compare college textbooks.