Review of New Year (2009) Resolutions

So term 1 of the school year has come and gone. Some of our kids would already have completed their quarterly review of their school grades and goals. Some of us working people have already had our reviews. I thought it's time to have a look at those personal resolutions I had made for year 2009:

In Dec 2008, I wrote that the following would be my personal new year resolutions:

1) To be a better servant of God
2) To be a better wife
3) To be a better mother
4) To help my son with his Chinese
5) To improve my own Chinese
6) To come up with more shoe designs (Yes, I know you are waiting for that!)

No. 7 is invisible but it was related ideally to some kind of needle movement on my weighing scale (in the correct direction of course).

With nearly 4 months gone, I took a look at the above:

1) To be a better servant of God
I'm not sure if I have become a better servant of God but I have been consciously trying. I am a Catholic and I have learnt over the years that it is always easier to feel holier than thou, good and harmonious whilst you are attending mass but terribly difficult to keep up the faith in every day life. That is what I mean to have self-consciousness and awareness in this area. I do know I spent the days before Easter in church praying, trying to knock some sense into my human self but on Easter night itself, whilst lining up behind a young lady at a roadside POSB ATM, I wanted really to give her a good wake up call for carrying out no less than 10 transactions with both her POSB cards whilst people queued up behind her. Then when I finally asked her if she was going to take much longer and she replied loudly (without turning back to look at me), "YES!" I really lost my temper at her arrogance, told her loudly to take her time and stomped off to my waiting car. Lady, I know you were at the ATM first but it wouldn't have hurt you to have a thought for the people behind you who may have just wished to make a quick withdrawal.
Yes, that was me on Easter, mind you. I have a long way to go as a Christian but I know I am only human and I shouldn't give up hope on myself yet because God won't.

2) To be a better wife
Oops! My hubby is too humble to say it out loud but I probably bully him no end with stuff like

"Could you get me a glass of water, please?"
"Could you please check if all the doors are locked?"
"Could you go check the letter box for letters, please?"
"I have no company for lunch today, wanna eat with me?"
"Did you remember to pay that bill?"
"Can you go get my car from the multi-storey carpark?"

Uh-huh..... I believe in my guy taking care of me, babe. Aiyah, I also take care of him in other ways what, like when he needs to scratch an area on his back which he can't reach! So, fair lah.

3) To be a better mother
I am not a fantastic mum and it's always a continuous learning journey which I hope I can travel for many, many years to come. I'm sure they'll miss me if I'm gone so I think yeah, I have made an effort this year to be there more for them. I yell less at them and I am firmer in other areas too. I've been referred to as a 'cool' mum. Ok, guess that'll do for now.

4) To help my son with his Chinese
Not much progress there. I know MM LKY means well in encouraging the parents to speak Mandarin with the kids to improve their ability in this language but really, he probably isn't aware of 'how good' our standard of Chinese is.
I was recently told by someone that it is so shameful that a Chinese cannot speak Chinese. She went on to say that we cannot survive if we cannot learn Chinese well. I was a bit put off actually. This was coming from someone who could hardly string a complete sentence in English.
What is 'cannot survive'?
Hello, think BIG. I mean BIG. In trying to conquer the world (or rather China), do not end up being narrow minded.
Firstly, I am very Chinese even if my Chinese sucks. Secondly, I know China is the new economic power house but really, it'd make more sense for them to learn to speak English to the rest of the world. These China Chinese who flock to Singapore shores to work, do you see them speaking English proficiently? Thirdly, are you telling me we all have to be so kiasu and ensure we speak Chinese if we are to survive in the future? To survive means what? To find a job related to China, I gather. So what happens to the many, many other jobs unrelated to China? Are we becoming a single nation on this good Earth? (roll eyes)

Those are NOT the right reasons to encourage me or my kids to improve our Chinese.
It makes me even sicker to hear all this. Get off my backs, I tell you. Enough already, enough already. Blame my boring, unmotivated Chinese school teachers if you must. But I am sick of getting the flak for my weakness in my so called Mother Tongue. MAKE THE LANGUAGE interesting for goodness sake and throw away grading for bananas like myself. If you keep pegging the MT grade to entrance to JCs or Polys or Uni, then there will be no light at the end of this forsaken Chinese tunnel.

5) To improve my own Chinese
Ditto to the above

6) To come up with more shoe designs (Yes, I know you are waiting for that!)
I decided that in keeping up with resolution no. 3 which is to be a better mother, my concentration is on my son's PSLE this year. He is weak in several subjects and I have to do my part in helping him cross this hurdle as best as I can. That is why I have not participated in any Flea Markets recently. His PSLE finishes in October and then maybe I can get on with it.

The good news is we have still seen a steady string of orders coming in to Cartoon Lagoon for our Dare-to-wear Hand Painted shoes, mostly through email and the phone. Thank you to our loyal supporters! We are still in business, lah. We just had to re-prioritise and spend more time with the kids as opposed to spending a whole weekend hanging out at a Flea Market. Come October, things should be different.

So, that's the end of my short list of new year resolutions for 2009. I do not even need to mention invisible no. 7 because the weighing scale needle has not moved. Neither to the left nor to the right. Sigh. I guess I should be happy that it hasn't headed upwards yet.

I realised that I forgot to mention trying to improve my son's Math grades. It's funny, I haven't even spent much time on his Chinese. I've spent more time on this Math. To me, his ability in Math is going to be much more important than his Chinese grades. As his mother, I need to believe that and I need to show him I stand by him.

Overally, my first 'quarterly review' does show that I have been trying to stay on track. Still trying...well, 4 months down and 8 more to go anyway.