Fear To Fold

I have a love-hate relationship with origami. In fact I'm lousy with art and craft. And I believe Jayden takes after me.

Why? Because in his last year's progress report, one of the comments that his Teacher made was "can have further improvement in Art & Crafts". I am aware of his unwillingness in getting his hand dirty with paints and glue, folding the wrong corners of papers, etc etc etc. I'm actually ok with him for not being enthusiastic in this area as compared to his crazy passion for soccer. But Teacher says "I hope Jayden can be an all-rounder!" *Roll eyes*.

And for last Christmas, the same the teacher who made the remark, gave Jayden a box of easy-to-do origami gift box for kids. Such a devoted teacher!

So came one week Jayden had to stay off school as he was down with viral fever. We were trying to figure how to pass time and then I suddenly remembered the box of origami papers.

Hid my fear, mustered up my courage and I managed to convince myself and Jayden to try to follow the instructions and fold up some easy origami mask.

The origami pack has many interesting animal masks with dotted lines readily printed for easy folding. It wasn't that bad after all! And we managed to do fold quite a number of masks, from very easy to a little more... erm... complicated. Complicated for the both of us, but I guess it's fairly easy for an other adults.

We had a good one hour of folding, arguing (which part to fold first!) and bonding. Not too bad for 2 beginners! Maybe, just maybe, we'll try the more complicated, more intricate origamis next time.

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A Good Performer Doesn't Equals To A Good Teacher

I was picking Jayden up from school as usual and met the 姑姑 of YY.

YY has been Jay's classmate since Day 1. They actually started out at Zee Junior together. They went through the tough transition period from Zee Junior's original management team to Cherie Heart's managment taking over the school. Initially YY's father didn't had much confidence in the Cheri Heart mangement team and instigated us to pull Jayden out together with YY. We didn't want to and decided to give the new management team a chance. In the end YY stayed on and they were happy with the performance of the new team, the new teachers and the progress the YY made. Until recently.

Anyway to cut the story short, I met the 姑姑 at the school gate and we made small talk. And the 姑姑 said he heard Jayden is learning the violin. So I gave her a quick recap on how and where Jayden started on his violin lessons, so on and so forth. And also from where and who Jayden is now taking his lessons from.

"Oh is his violin teacher from SSO?" asked YY's 姑姑.

"No he's not." I said.

"Oh..." said YY's 姑姑.

I wanted to say more but out came the kids together, all set to run out from the school and set off to home. I gave the 姑姑 a smile and left together with my very chatty son.

Does it matter to me if the teacher is not from SSO?

No. As I have come to understand that a good music performer does not mean he/she's a good teacher. But of course, a music teacher has to be good with the music instrument that he/she's teacher or else he/she will not be able to inspire the students.

Take my previous experience with my ex-teacher as a lesson. By the way, I fired my teacher. Finally. Haha! He's a wonderful violinist, performs with so much passion and fire that he almost jumped off his seat! He played the violin with much intensity that my friend said she's got goosebumps on her arm when watching him perform with his quartet. By the way, he's the first violinist. And his list of credential goes on and on. Mind you, he is not a Diploma holder but has 1st class honours in Music Performance warded by NAFA.

Impressive eh? But if you ask me, is he a good teacher. I would say no. He was impatient, pushy and lack of interpersonal skills. He would yelled at me when I play a note wrongly more than twice and make sarcastic remarks when I couldn't memorise my key signatures fast enough. The only time we could talk amicably is via sms. Everytime I try to talk to him face to face, he would avoid eye contact with me and brush my questions aside. So what's good of a fantastic performer when he can't even hold a decent conversation with his student?

So next time, don't come to the conclusion that great performers are good teachers. Some music teachers, even though don't belong to famous quartets, SSO.. etc etc etc. can be as good, or even better.

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Jingle Bells

If you are my Facebook friends, you'd probably saw this video already. Nevertheless, I'll share it again on my blog for those who didn't get to see it on my Facebook.

Here is Jayden, performing "Jingle Bells" for his classmates during the school's Christmas party. This piece can be found in the Fiddle Time Joggers that he's currently using for his violin lessons.



We were practicing this song a few weeks before Christmas and I casually asked him if he would like to perform this song for his schoolmates during the party. He obliged. The second piece that he played was not a Christmas song though. It was a special request from his Teacher, Ms Noor, as she said she love the rhythm of the song very much.

I'm always looking for opportunities for Jayden to play the violin for his friends, schoolmates, relatives or as and when there's upcoming concerts organized by his teacher. I believe it's very important as it will help boost his confidence, allowing him to be more receptive to play for future larger scales of concerts and recitals.

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Should You Discipline Someone Else's Child In Public?

This article caught my eye when I was browsing through the Family section of the recent Sunday Times. It basically talked about kids misbehaving badly and causing a nuisance to the public.

There were two cases cited. A policy development executive witnessed two toddlers hurling stones at a sleeping cat outside a restaurant. When the parents took no actions against the abusive behaviour of the toddlers, he signalled to the children to stop what they were doing and ushered them back to their seats, much to the displeasure of their parents. According to him, the children's father even remarked that "it's only an animal" that his son was targeting.

Second case was about a 39 year old housewife saying that she was dining at a restaurant with her 8 year old son and a 3 year old daughter at a cafe several years ago. Her son, who had finished his meal, stood on his booth seat despite her repeated admonitions to him not to do so. A couple seated at the other end of the booth seat were annoyed at the disturbance. "The man did not hesitate to tell us off. I was upset, of course. Besides the mild discomfort my son caused, there was no other trespass," the 39 year old housewife said. She hopes people in Singapore would be more tolerant.

"After all, it is said that it takes a village to raise a child and it is hard enough to be a parent. As a gracious society, we should just give and take when handling a child," she adds.

So back to the question. Should you discipline someone else's child in public?

If you'd ask me. For the first case that's mentioned. A definite YES. The kids and their parents ought to be slapped. How could they allow their children to inflict pain on a poor defenceless animal? If they can do it to an animal, come one day they may even be daring enough and capable of doing more harm than just to hurt a cat!

And to the 39 year old housewife ~ hey lady, you might find the actions of your son to be a very minor disturbance. But please before you ask people to more tolerant, put yourself in the shoes of others. If you were that couple, how would you feel if someone's constantly pounding on the booth when you are trying to just have a good meal? This is a cafe, not a kopitiam! Please try to have a firm discipline on your son. If he doesn't stop at your constant warnings, are you just going to allow him to go on and on?

I had a recent meetup with a couple of old friends and one them asked if I still use the "pull the ear" tactic when my son misbehaves in the public. "Oh yes," I answered. "As long as it works, I'll just keep doing it whenever he misbehaves!" Yes it's very unglam as once another friend lamented. But hey! As long as it works and it keeps my son from being a nuisance to the public, keeping him out of trouble, who cares if it's glam or unglam！

So, should you discipline someone else's child in public then? Yes. If the situation calls for it, I will not hesitate to do so.

And will I allow my son be discipline by others? Hell no. I will pull his ear and scold him myself before any Tom, Dick and Harry does so!

让别人来教自己的孩子， 颜面何存？！

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New Year! New Look!

It's year 2012! A new year again!

It's time for a revamp for the again much neglected blog. It's been more than a year since I last put in a post. Time flies. I didn't even notice that the blog has once again, been neglected for this such long period of time this time round.

I'm sorry for not responding to the comments / requests that some of you have posted. I can't believe there are still people who actually continue to read this much neglected blog. A resolution for the new year ~ pay more attention to Jayden's (and also my own) blog and put in more entries!

Oh yeah, thanks to Daddy, we have a new look for Jayden's Journey. This time round I've requested for the blog to have a more clean, clear and simple design as compared to the last one. I also did a bit of cleaning up and removed links that aren't working anymore.

What have we, Jayden and I achieved for the past 1 year and 2 months?

~ We took our first long haul flight to United States and we did it without much hiccups!

~ Jayden graduated from his Suzuki Violin class at Mandeville Music School at April and started his one-to-one violin lessons.

~ Jayden participated in the national wide CMA Arithmetic and Abacus competition in May and came in 3rd for both categories!

~ Jayden started taking professional football training in June at Arsenal Soccer School League and his favourite coach is Coach Marciel!

~ Mommy took her first ABRSM violin exam for Grade 1 in September and scored a Distinction!

~ Jayden was given a longer piece of violin duet to practice in October, for his end year concert.

~ Finally, after practicing the piece of 4minute long violin duet for 2 months, Jayden performed the piece with his Teacher at the Matthias Oestringer Year End Student Concert on 11 December!

The above sums up more or less the significant events of year 2011! Of course there were many ups and downs but with the new year starting let's just think of all the positiveness and forget about all the bad stuff :)

And here is the video taken during Jayden's violin duet performance with Teacher Matthias Oestringer. By the end of his duet performance, I was beaming from ear to ear, and I'm sure so was Daddy :)

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Neglected

I have been neglecting Jayden's blog lately. Too caught up with too many other things relating and non-relating to Jayden including taking a week's off to Club Med Phuket and me being more active in my hot yoga practices at a new yoga studio.

Life goes on. And the child is still absorbing like at sponge till this day. Jayden is picking up fast with the abacus at CMA Arithmetic Center and the teachers reported that he's is progressing fast and eager to learn.

True enough, with around 14 pages of homework given, Jayden was able to finished it within 2 days and asking for more. I couldn't let him progress further without the teachers' coaching fearing that I might teach the wrong concept even though I roughly know how the method works.

He's really concentrating on his abacus homework :) He really love using the abacus.

The music appreciation lessons has also came to and end and we finally had our Saturdays freed! Thank goodness, less 1 day to brace the crowd at United Square. But still we have to go back to United Square every Sunday for Jayden's Suzuki Violin lessons.

Playing the violin is something that I yearned for when I was young. But because of our family financial conditions then, I wasn't able to realized. I am grateful to Jayden for giving me the chance to realize it now.

Taking the violin lessons together with Jayden is somewhat stressful, challenging and stretching my patience to its limit. Violin is something that is totally strange and new to the both of us. At times I had to admit that my patience could run thin as I will insist Jayden gets every motion and rhythm correct. I have to constantly remind myself not to push him too hard.

Here is a snapshot of Jayden trying to perfect his violin position on his foot chart in his playroom.

Will Jayden be a great violinist? Nobody knows what's in store for the future. For now I will be very contented if he could play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

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