happy diwali

some of you may have already viewed this pic, but for those who haven’t, this is how we spent our saturday night (after rugby!)… charles and i went to a diwali party. it was a great deal of fun and a great deal of amazingly excellent food. i just lurve indian food and it just lurves my thighs.

i will write more…very very soon…tomorrow? lots going on. wetmarkets, breakfasts, stories…and kissy girls. i’ve been avoiding that one.

but i will close by congratulating frugal blake, not only is he grandfather to the cutest newborn on the block, BUT on monday he WON the YK1 schoolboard election. well done blake…how’s retirement working out for you???

 

absolutely brilliant.

there’s no use talking when someone else has already said it so well.

take two minutes and check out:

tell me what you think.

are the tides turning?

Arnel Pineda… The Journey from Philippines to Igor’s to Oprah

several months ago the young kids on american idol sang "don't stop believing" – a great song by JOURNEY.
 
on that same show, the kids spoke of how being on AI is "the chance of a lifetime".
 
in some senses, they are right. it is a shot at stardom. but in many cases, it is not a life and death situation. america, God bless it, has a social system and public housing. taxes help many, not just the celebs hired with taxpayer money to sing at AIG bashes.
 
hearing that song did remind me of a neat "chance of a lifetime" story.
 
in the late 1990's, friends of mine i knew through the journo world came up with IGOR's, hong kong's first dinner dance theatre. you dressed up, ate, and danced to amazing music provided by a Filipino band, "the rolling bones". skulls and crosses were the order of the day. (this is me outside igor's after they closed their doors for the last time in hong kong.)
 
we loved igors, and loved vicky and chris, who owned the place. and jeannette, their pr person. IGORS was a great concept and they did it so well. and the band was amazing.
 
eventually, IGOR's moved on to singapore and closed up their hong kong locations.
 
two summers ago, i was in canada and at the cottage with no access to television and only the provincial papers. and i heard about journey reuniting, with a new lead singer they found over you tube. huh..good for them. unlike my husband (that would be charles caldwell) i have always LOVED journey.
 
apparently the new singer's voice was similar but not identical to steve perry's. good, very good, i thought. and sort of forgot about it until a few months later when i realised that that new lead singer, who was getting rave reviews, and performing around the globe, was no other than the erstwhile lead singer of the rolling bones. arnel pineda.
 
talk about don't stop believing. here, is his story of how he got to be the lead singer of JOURNEY and what his life was like before JOURNEY. From TIME MAGAZINE…..
 
How Journey found Pineda is a Cinderella tale of the Internet era. After the band dismissed Soto last June for unspecified reasons, guitarist Neal Schon turned to the Web in search of talent. After two days of surfing on YouTube, he came upon clips of Pineda singing with his band, The Zoo, and nailing all the right notes in the toughest Survivor, Queen and Journey power ballads. "I heard his voice and my eyes got big," says Schon, who has been with Journey since its inception in 1975. "I thought, he can't be that good." Schon left his house, took a spin on his motorcycle to clear his head, and then contacted Pineda. At first, the singer thought the email was a hoax. "I didn't think the real Neal Schon would call a guy like me," says Pineda. "I'm just a guy from the Philippines." Four months later, Pineda signed on as Journey's new lead singer. "I've been waiting for this moment to come for 25 years," he says. "It's like shooting to the moon."
 
Born in Manila, Pineda, 40, started singing as a child, quickly learning his parents' favorite songs by The Jackson Five, Barbra Streisand and The Carpenters. His parents struggled to raise their four sons by running a corner shop and tailoring clothes. Pineda performed in local singing competitions until the age of 13, when his mother died from an extended illness. Medical bills had drained their savings, leaving the family homeless and living with relatives. Not wanting to burden his father, Pineda struck out on his own, collecting newspapers and bottles, and living on the street for nearly two years. When he was 15, a friend encouraged him to start singing again, beginning Pineda's 25-year career as a cover band singer in the Philippines and Hong Kong.
 
Arnel was back in the Philippines when they found him. And in all likelihood, that is where he would have stayed. Maybe he would have come back to Hong Kong to sing in a bar here. Can you imagine, playing to 200 people and then going on to playing for stadiums of 12,000?
 
i downloaded arnel on youtube and watched his first performance in chile. you can tell that although he's focused, there are times when he's thinking "I can't believe this"…

He's a hero in the Philippines. This is a guy who as a young teenager made one packet of biscuits last two days so he could eat every day.

and look at him now. his father still works as a tailor, but THIS, to return rich to the philippines, a country with no social net and so much poverty and corruption, is the chance of a lifetime.

an amazing voice, an amazing story, who popped up on oprah again last week…

sort of sickie

it has been a very busy week. a good week, but a busy one.

our book club met the same night as the memorial service. i hadn't attended book club for two weeks and this is a VERY BAD THING. i am a founding member, yet given that i didn't attend meetings for a good two years, i am not really seen as a solid member! becky and susan are wayyyy more involved than i am and i am not used to that, to shirking my duties!

i did go to book club and i was so happy i did. the book was a classic, and we all felt, the one book that when we shared with friends what we were reading, they all had the same reaction…"Ohhh, i LOVED that book!!!" we have read some great books in our six years together, but either someone in the group or outside would say, "heh, i didn't get it" or "the book really didn't do it for me!"

but everyone loved TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

who were the mockingbirds? why did harper lee only write the one book? what were the pivotal growing up moments for jem? for scout?

a great book.

i woke up thursday to go for a run and lay back in bed. i didn't have it in me.

later that day, i realised my lingering sore throat was getting worse. my teeth were sore as were the sides of my neck. and my tummy was NOT HAPPY.

i went home, emailed charles to let him know that i was VERY ILL, and then after resting for a bit, headed out to see my friend bec, who was having a bit of a rooftop party. it was very small and very lovely.

i arrived at 8.30 and left at 9.45pm. took a long shower when i got home.

and then i just went to bed, at one point, sebbie got up to do a wee and came into my room. he said, "mummy are you sick?" and i said, "yes i am" and he gave me a massive hug. then he asked, "do you have swine flu?" and i said no, i didn't have a fever. i then sent him back to his bed.

apparently sela tried to sleep with us last night and i know jasper did as well. i remember him coming in before charles got home and asking if he could sleep on daddy's side of the bed but you know jasper…he is a thrasher. i had NO desire to sleep anywhere near him. i think i told him to do a wee and when he asked me to come with him i think i fell back asleep.

i awoke this morning and although i don't remember all of the day i do remember that some of it was pretty good. i took care of some stuff, went to the church and prepared for sunday school, talked with MB and isobel, and then headed in to central.

still feeling sick though, and it was a relief to head home to bed and stay there. i am meant to be doign work, but i have absolutely no energy, so i am not going to.

tomorrow is canadian thanksgiving. i have to take sela to a birthday party, and do a grocery shop, and at 3.30 there is a canadian thanksgiving party we will go to until 6.30pm, when there is rugby! after rugby we are meeting our friends helen and richard and some other friends for dinner.

any suggestions what i can make for the thanksgiving dinner????

i attended a memorial yesterday.

i did not know the deceased, a kennedy teacher, very well. if i had not volunteered to pour tea and coffee and clear the tables at the tea following the service, i would not have attended.

however i did, and was very touched. this teacher, linda quinton, taught individual needs, and there was a video tribute comprised of quotes from children she had taught over the years.

what a difference good teachers make to our children's lives.

are we doing everything we can to support them?

are we doing everything we can to support our schools?

what a difference adult INTEREST can make to a child. i am sure we all have a memory of an adult who made us feel fantastic. who made us think and belive we were wonderful. am i laying down that foundation of being that adult for my children's friends? are you?

i'm trying. kid-talk doesn't come naturally to me, but i don't think it comes naturally to a lot of people.
so i am just jumping in. learning from my friends. trying and trying. and being proud of myself when i actually see change.

we are all teachers.

are you doing everything you can to support your fellow man?

school x 4

now that they have been at school for six weeks, i feel i am in a pretty good place to describe how the kids are settling in to their new status.

i am happy to say that sebastian is having a good year. his teachers are fantastic, and with typical sebastian luck, very attractive. i don't know what he is going to do if he ever lands an unattractive teacher!

sebastian did inform me the other day that he felt that "year three is not as hard as everyone said it is. it is much easier." he loves the creative bits. the other day his teacher was reading to the class roald dahl;s the minpins, and asked the class to break into groups of three. one student would be little billy, one student would be the mummy, and one student would be the devil. the mummy would try to convince little billy NOT to go into the forest and another student would be the devil and try to convince little billy (third student) to go into the forest.

well. sebastian chose to the the devil and tried to persuade little billy with promises like,

"chocolate trees, no bedtime, candy floss dinners, television in your room, sweeties first and then hamburgers, no vegetables unless you want them, a button you can press to make your brothers and sisters be quiet…" his creative little mind was just flashing ideas out as to what temptations would make little billy enter the wood his mother was so against him walking into.

maths is also going well. seb needs to have his 3 and 4 times tables nailed into this head, and this is where i come in, but give me time. it is only october.

jasper loves his teacher. the other night seb and jasper actually came to blows as they tried to determine who had the best looking teacher. jasper is not the smartest, or most attentive student, but his reading is coming along well. he desperately wants maths homework. i am trying to get him to concentrate on his handwriting! jasper is learning a few home truths. yesterday i was getting changed out of my bathing suit when i saw jasper staring at me. he contemplated my naked form for a few seconds longer, turned and said, "it's rude to show your bottom to everyone" and started walking away from me.

sela loves school. the other day she was upset and i told her to shut her eyes and think of a happy place. sebastian immediately said CANADA! and sela came up with…SCHOOL! she focuses so intently and is doing particularly well in mandarin. her tones are really noticeable. the other morning sela came into our room quite distressed and said she had had a nightmare. expecting to hear that swiper had tried to kill her (a la jasper) i was amused to learn that she had dreamt that her name was written on the board underneath a sad face! but it was just a dream mummy! she has been to two birthday parties and has an nvite for a third.

carys is enjoying school although she claims she is sometimes bored. she gives up on tasks she finds challenging, like handwriting. but she loves accompishing. she is still very much danielles friend but also has a new friend, annie. annie is a very nice quiet girl. carys' teacher told me he sometimes challenges himself to see how many words he can get carys to string together.

mr francis: carys did you have a dream last night?

carys: yes

mr francis: can you tell me about it?

carys: yes

mr francis: well then, go on!

carys: it was a long dweam.

eventually he will ask the right question and she will be off and running. she isn't naughty, but she isn't as quiet as we all suppose she is sometimes! she can get chatty and observant during table time when she is meant to be doing a project!!!  her reading is fine…not at jasper and sela level, but i kno it is going to click at some point. she loves PE.

one month in, they are all happy and fulfilled. i really couldn't ask for much more!

today has been a fairly busy day. the number one activity on my schedule – get groceries, did not get accomplished, but some other entertaining activities did.

charles had conference calls last night, so this morning when the kids were up at the crack of bottom and wandered into our room to say "we don't have school! can we watch television?" we remembered that we were supposed to be sensitive about the trip to the philippines being cancelled bla bla bla and so he said yes, stumbled into the family room, turned on the television and came back to bed. at 7.30 i got up, threw some froot loops into a bowl (the other saturday cereal, cap'n crunch is forbidden until i decide what exactly the cap'n is captain OF) added milk and declared breakfast was served. i stayed and watched television with them (scooby doo) and then declared that it was the girls turn to watch. dora it was! thankfully the boys didn't mind too much.

i decreed that as soon as dora had achieved her third goal and the mariachi band had played and we had recounted our fave part of the dora journey we would go to parknshop and let daddy sleep. the kids agreed. but charles woke up and then he made smoothies and then it was 10am.

the girls and i went into their room, tried on t-shirts and got rid of anything that was remotely small. ditto for shoes. then the boys room. it was vaguely depressing because i had done a top notch cleanse of the flat a few months previously before we moved. but i found two bags of stuff and sent it over to my friend weng, who is collecting for world vision. because she had people coming over all day long, she couldn't take her kids out, so i asked them if they wanted to come on a hike with charles and our family. they said YES PLEASE and so they came with us.

we took the car to the peak and walked round. took pictures of spiders, snails and all sorts of things. played in two playgrounds, ate in two different locations. had a good afternoon and ended up walking down from the peak. the kids had a great time and on the whole were very well behaved.

and while i was walking down with the kids, i got a text message from tara essentially saying "saturday isn't good for me to have the lantern festival. can we do it tonight?" that worked fine for me, but it was 2.30pm. tara and i had gone lantern shopping earlier in the week, but the kids didn't have new chinese traditional clothings, which is what they usually wear to the lantern parade. but hey, doesn't matter. tara called everyone in our building who would normally come, and by 5pm, most of us were there. i did none of the organising because i wasn't even supposed to be there! we were add ons! but it was fantastic.

one of the things we bought this year was flashing glasses. they are for the kids but they are wayyy too large for the kids and so i ended up holding or wearing them most of the time. love them! not when they are flashing, but still.

i made lots of glo stick necklaces, lots of glo stick bracelets and two glo stick balls and so on. we ate pizzas and ugh, the order got messed up and the hawaiian pizzas had creamy thousand island dressing. (this is trivia). we talked and ate and drank and laughed. it was a great catch up. we set lanterns in the trees, the night got darker, the full moon became apparent and then it was time for our lantern march. tara organised everyone, and we circled the playground, waved the lanterns and laughed.

cleaned up and here we are at home, the moon shining brightly in the sky and glo sticks shining on the floor and in still clutched tight hands.

bad drugs

by the end of this summer, when forest fires, accommodation and related other issues were no longer of utmost priority, after uniforms had been pressed, classrooms had been memorised and routines had been establised, i got to several similar emails which had been sitting in my inbox for a few weeks.

the subject headers included: "thought you should know" "you probably already know" "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS?" "What Does This Mean For Your Kids (Particularly Sebbie and Carys?) and FYI"

What THIS was, was the study put out by the New England Journal of Medicine which revealed that children born to women who were on valproates during pregnancy (and all my four were) will have iq's nine points less than children who weren't.  here's an excerpt……

A study today adds more evidence that women who could get pregnant
shouldn't take the commonly prescribed anti-epileptic drug valproate,
also used to treat migraines and bipolar disorder.

The study, which is published in The New England Journal of
Medicine, assessed 258 2- and 3-year-olds whose mothers took one of
four anti-epileptic drugs while pregnant.

On average, children exposed to valproate had an IQ of 92, six to
nine points lower than the others. Still, the authors caution,
uncontrolled seizures in the mother are riskier than any anti-epileptic
drug, so women shouldn't suddenly stop their medication.

Some anti-epileptic medications have been used for more than a
century, but doctors didn't begin to recognize their pregnancy risks
until the 1960s, says lead author Kimford Meador, an Emory University
neurologist in Atlanta.

Some research suggests that the average IQ has risen from 100 to 110
or 115, Holmes says. If so, he says, even lamotrigine, which fared best
in Meador's study, might have a significant effect.

So what am I going to do about it? Well, tuck that piece of knowledge away for my next pregnancy? Sure thing.

OBVIOUSLY there's not a lot I can do about this.

And as I was talking it through with another mum the other day at school, I realised it really doesn't bother me that much. Both Charles and I are of average intellect (Charles smarter), and i reckon our children will have average intellect, give or take nine points. And their emotional IQ ought to be all right as well. At the end of the day, we;re in God's hands. This isn't a massive deal. If the study revealed that the drugs caused depression, or another mental illness, or if it prevented them from loving, or feeling…then i would be sad. Nine IQ points? That's all right. They've still got joy.
There's nothing I can do about this. I went on drs advice (and i did see three doctors!) and they went on the medical knowlege there was at the time.

My kids are for the most part, healthy. They are smart and loving. This isn't going to hold them back. They're going to learn about endurance. Obstacles. So many other kids in this world have huge obstacles. IF this is one for them then it is a small one, and they will be fine. We're in God's hands.

bananas and boys

the other day i was standing at kennedy school talking with assorted parents and the principal.

"where else in the world," i inquired "do kids get to see banana trees from their classroom windows?"

especially as we prepare to head off to the philippines on the building trip, i am painfully aware that there are many children in tropical climates who see banana trees from roadsides, homes, cars, but not schools. one of the many reasons i love my husband is that he gives so generously to charities and for the last year we have provided education and hot meals for 60 children.

among the many trees surrounding kennedy school are several banana trees. and they are fruitful.

today sebastian went on a field trip. i accompanied him. we went to mui wo and cleaned up a beach. then we walked for about 20 minutes and learned about composting and ways of preserving energy around the home.

sebastian and i left the field trip early. the reason for this is that sebastian has karate every friday afternoon and i was loathe to miss a session. not just because we have prepaid (thanks dad!) but because his teacher is great and sebastian is really responding to the discipline. it was great just talking with sebastian on the walk back to the ferry, and although time was tight, when i saw a picture of a massive spider, i asked seb to take my picture with it (i originally offered seb to be in the photo and he declined). instead, my little boy took the shot and wondered why i wanted to be in a photo with a massive spider. i said just to show everyone how close i was to it.

we kept walking and then sebastian and i came along some banana trees. knifemarks indicated that just a day or so ago there had been ripe bananas on the tree, but they had been recently removed. we kept walking, and saw "baby bananas" and seb touched the peel, and we felt how firm it is, and were just in the middle of a discussion of how it is hard, yet is going to get so much bigger, when i stopped. there was a bunch of bananas right above my head. sebastian was delighted. he sees banana trees all the time, and on holidays he has touched bananas, but this was the first time he had see native bananas up close! he climbed up the poles, and i took a gorgeous picture of him on my phone. just lovely.

right now we have the girls at a sleepover and tara's son tallinn here sleeping over. let's hope all is well and they snooze the night away. for late night snack they had bananas, seaweed, granola bars and popcorn, so chances are good there will be some rather vivid dreams tonight!

buenos noches, chiquita!

comings and goings

yesterday sebastian and i were upstairs both trying to figure out subtraction when jasper spun into the flat, bursting with importance.

of course, at first i thought he had to do a wee, and just pointed him towards the bathroom.

"nnoooooo mummy! noooo! de is downstairs! de is downstairs!"

DE! downstairs! (at left, mila, lita and de with the triplets and sebastian in 2005.)

sebastian looked at him and said, "you mean de who used to live with us?" (like there are so many others that we know??) I LOVE SEBASTIAN

sebastian and i jumped up and i ran to the kitchen and looked over the playground. there was de. talking to gary, tara and susan.

de. who is going back to the philippines to spend time with his daughter until their papers get processed and de and baby melissa (now 5!!) will be reunited in canada with lita. de. in our playground.

sebastian and i rushed to put on our shoes, and we headed down in the lift.

i think i scared de, as i rushed to him and hugged him. hard.

we talked about the kids, how they have grown. sela and carys were riding their bicycles, and jasper was racing around.  sebastian ran toward de and said, "hello de!" and gave him such a warm hug.

it was a short visit. i had to get to a pta meeting, (and i was late!) but jasper and i walked de to the bus stop. and i said i would see him again in canada. jasper agreed. we all hugged again and then he started to walk away from us.

and then the tears started coming down my face. i called out again.

"de!" and he turned and looked at me. and immediately looked concerned.

"thank you de. thank you so much for everything. we love you so much."

how can you not love people who have been such a part of your family? who have loved your children so much, that even two years after their departure, the kids still run to them with joy? so much that JASPER even volunteers to walk to prolong the visit? that is love.

lita and de saw us through such a difficult time in our lives. i can't ever forget them or think of them with anything but love and gratitude. they loved our children, were so patient with them and with charles and me.  the time with gary and marianne is less intense, but the same love to our children is there. we have been so blessed.

de called back to me, "no, i thank you."

i lifted up my arm, he lifted up his, and we smiled, and then i watched him walk away. and jasper tugged at my hand and said, "why is your face all red? are you the sun?"

and i said, "no, i am the mummy."