my footprints

Saturday, January 26, 2008

"MY MUMMY DIDN"T... "

after about a month, i realised that jie en often gives an excuse which she thinks that she can get away with. a typical excuse of "my mummy didn't ..." she uses it when i ask the class to bring things or ask back certain necessary admin items or even simple things like her waterbottle or towel.

it was the last straw yesterday when we wanted to go out for a walk. the class were getting ready and busy wearing their shoes when jie en came up to me.

jie en: ms xuan, i cannot find my shoes.
me: how come? *walked over to the shoe rack to look* (but her shoes weren't there)

i searched outside, other shoe racks and the rest of the possible places but no avail.

me: so how did you come to school? do you remember where did you put it?
jie en: *shook her head*
me: please go and check again? if not you won't be able to go out with us, you'll have to stay behind instead.

then i remembered that there were a few times last year when i heard from my colleague who took them last year that jie en came to school with her dad carry her. so her mum usually would just place her shoes in the shoe rack.

me: jie en, did you walk on your own or did daddy carry you to school today?
jie en: *stares blankly* i don't know.
me: so if you don't know, how am i going to find your shoes?
jie en: my mummy didn't bring my shoes.

me: *exasperated* you tell me if your shoes are worn by you or worn by your mummy? so if your mummy don't bring your shoes, who is going to bring your shoes?
jie en: *looks at me with tears filled eyes*
me: so jie en, what do you want me to do now since that you have no shoes and you say that your mummy didn't bring your shoes? stay behind in school while the rest of us go out?
jie en: *starts crying* i don't want that.

while i was deciding with my chinese teacher to borrow a girl's shoes from another class, we overheard our kids' intelligent conversations which caused us to burst out laughing.

james: AIYO. how can jie en come to school with no shoes?
vera: because her mummy never bring her shoes what.
rian: but just now ms xuan said that jie en cannot say that because its her shoes, not her mummy shoes!
vera: ya! jie en needs to be punished. so she cannot go out together with us.
james: don't need la. just ask ms xuan to call jie en's mummy!

rian: why call jie en's mummy?
james: then ms xuan don't need to scold jie en. just scold jie en's mummy for not bringing jie en's shoes lor!
vera: oh ya! then next time jie en will not say that her mummy never bring her shoes anymore. because we all don't want ms xuan to scold our mummies!
rian: oh yayy. very good. ms xuan! can you call jie en's mummy and scold her now?
me: *faints*

anyways, i watched "fooled" by temasek hall's productions at SRT dbs arts centre with layleng, huiyi and sam last night. it certainly was time away from work and all that nitty gritty stuff of life. stepping into a theatre never fails to allow me to spend that short interval, watching how i can use the play to draw parallel to life. it was a good reminder, of how we tend to get caught up with the pace of life that the world is going and the notions/ideas of the materialistic society around us.

a well written script.
good job shuyan! :)

she pens down @ 10:51 PM --------------------------------------------------------------