Finally moved into the varsity hostel! 

her school for the next few months. 

Her room is really quite decent: spacious and clean and she has a pretty view of the outdoors.  The size of the bed is a luxury too, I must say, given that it is a dorm.

The girls must have gone out to do some groceries shopping too because C showed us photos of them meal-prepping. Not too bad with their choices of vegetables and meat. Wonder what food they would try to cook next.

Looks like dinner for the next 3 days is settled. :) 

Thanks to the wifi onboard her flight, C was able to keep us updated. Much to our amusement, C bought the famous Dubai chocolates while waiting for the connecting flight out to London. 

When she arrived at Heathrow Airport, she also let us know that they had cleared customs and were waiting for the train out. 

Thankfully, the train looked clean.  Because they were not able to move in to the hostel yet, they had to put up at an Airbnb for 2 nights. They also took the opportunity to explore the university town. 

Oh man, the old-so-familiar grey England skies... 

C took off for her 6-month long Exchange. After we learned that she had been accepted, she had been preparing herself mentally to be away from us. We noted down the things she might need and slowly made purchase over the months. 

Everyone at home was excited and yet had that longing for her.

With the cousins.

A reunion. 

and also an extremely early birthday celebration for the girl who will be turning 21 this year.

I went to work with a heavy heart... 

Can't believe that she is all grown up ... 

Kids these days are really quite resourceful. C was added into a group chat with students from the various universities who were also going for Exchange during the same time. There is a group of 9 others: 8 from NUS and 1 from NTU, met up several times to get to know each other and discuss their plans in the months leading up to D-day. Honestly, we left C to do almost all the preparation for the trip: she settled the study visa, flight tickets, booking of the modules that she would be taking, accommodations, among others. She updated us every now and then about the progress of things and we did not have to worry much.  

So, we shall look forward to her texts, video calls, and photos from her adventure. :) 

It was some time late 2020 when C came to this decision - she would continue her post-secondary school education in a junior college. Since then, she had been gearing herself up.

We spoke about the challenges she would face - the late dismissal from school, the CCA commitments, the pockets of "free" time from her time table, and the demands of the curriculum. We also advised her about the friends and school mates that she might encounter. It was not all solemn and serious, of course. We also commented that class would be interesting especially for English and General Paper because of the discussions that would take place. We candidly shared that during our time, our motivation to get into jc was as simple and frivolous as us just wanting to go to school in trainers. Haha

It has been about a month since school started for her and she is still acclimating. She is definitely spending more hours online reading up on materials, or watching a film for class but she is enjoying the process. Then there are days where she is grouchy and waking up tired - all part-and-parcel of student life. 

We keep her in prayer. May the good Lord watch over her and guide her.

12 January 2022 -  O level results release

The much-awaited day came and went. Unlike 4 years ago when she received her PSLE results, this time she was alone - parents were allowed in school due to the Safe Management Measures (SMM) so we had our mobile phones close in case her message came in.

A lot of sweat, hard work, and sleepless nights went into the preparation for the national examination so she was anxious naturally. She recounted the friendships she had fostered, the pep talks, and the occasional well-meaning scoldings the class received from teachers. These 4 years hadn't been easy - they went on a month-long of Home-based Learning in 2020 and another short one in 2021, all when they were moved on to upper secondary where the syllabus and work were more demanding. Camps and outdoor activities were suspended, CCAs came to a halt and social activities were very much none in existence. Yet, this lot of students strived and persevered - they adapted and rose to the challenge. 

I was browsing my photo album and saw these photos that I had taken earlier :

The lovely notes of encouragement and gifts from her teachers and classmates when they had their own farewell. Among them was also a letter that she had written to herself.

A plaque from the school for her service.

and the parting gift from school. She loves this bear a lot :) 

God is good - all the time and C knows she is in good hands. 

 

Last day of exam and C was already getting ready to let her hair down.

She only had one thing on her mind and that was to get her hair coloured. She had talked about it previously when she was much younger but our answer to her had always been "no". She knew from an extremely young age that there was a timeline for her to be able to get certain wants.

So this time round, we agreed of course.

Here she is, our happy camper with her flaming hot hair. 

It is an understatement to say that time flies... really.

A photograph popped up on Memories in Facebook and it was on a set of photographs that I had taken of C getting her uniforms and books for primary school. Fast-forward to 2021 and she was sitting for her O level English papers this afternoon.

She was pretty nervous, I must say. Whenever I could, I would get back home in time to say a prayer with her before sending her off for her papers. However today, I did not manage to and gave her a call instead. She had initially said that she would only leave for school at 1.15 in the afternoon but her papers were starting at 1.30! After that correction, I received another text from her that read she had taken the bus in the wrong direction! oh man... 

Luckily C has a habit of giving herself an hour of buffer time so she wasn't all that flustered.

Talk about being stressed. She commented the EL papers were tricky with many inferential questions for Paper 2 but Paper 1 was alright and she didn't feel much anxiety about them. Hopefully the exam would proceed smoothly. 

The latest vaccination drive was for students who would be taking their National Exams and we booked her a date during the June hols.

She was supposed to get her second dose earlier but she had a paper just a few days back and we didn't want to risk her falling ill just before so we waited till today.

Daddy took her down in the afternoon.

like the previous times, she returned with freebies. 

She is resting now and hopefully she will feel better tomorrow. 

In 14 days, our entire nuclear family would be vaccinated but I doubt this changes much for us - we are already staying home during the weekdays and much of the weekends as well.  

For some strange reason, I remember Mother's Day to be the first Sunday in May and because of this mistake, we went about making plans for our hot pot lunch at Mum's.

We hadn't gone out as a family for meals but we were always grateful that we had been able to go over to mum's for meals. Food does bring people together, gives us the opportunity to chat about anything and everything under the sun, or just with with each other. 

So after the announcement came out in the news that the number of visitors each household could receive would be reduced to 5, due to the spike in C19 cases, we joked that our "mistake" was timely. On a more serious note, we rarely gather - the last time we had all of us together with during the CNY period where a maximum of 8 guests was permitted. Even after the restrictions were less stringent last few months, we still rarely went out on weekends. 

Back to our lunch, food was tasty and plentiful, company was awesome - we are thankful that we are all in good health and keeping well. :) 

May all of us continue to stay strong!    

Writing this entry to mark another significant event - last year this time, all of us were working from home. Daddy started way earlier as his company had grouped them into Teams A and B and then rostered each team to report to work alternate weeks. That gradually stopped and some time late March, Daddy was just staying in for work full-time. 

I returned to school on 25 May 2020. Our mid-year break which usually happens in June was brought forward a month earlier to May. This was after a month long of Home-Based Learning (HBL) where we taught from home, graded papers on our laptops, and fidgeted with gadgets like microphones and ear-pieces.  C returned to schools for lessons on alternate weeks on  8 June. 

My set-up at home where the dining area was my work station.

Daddy's work area at the Study. We have a sofa-bed against the wall which also doubled up as Cheryl's work zone. On days where Daddy had meetings, C would be in her bedroom with the laptop, plugged in for her lessons. 

Well, today, Daddy heads back to the office but the good thing is he isn't required to be there the entire week. For now, he gets a reprieve from this arrangement of being alone at home. 

Exactly a year ago, after we celebrated C's birthday, we went into Circuit Breaker. This year, things are seemingly looking up -  Daddy would be returning to office soon after having worked from home for more than 1 year.

Our usual practice would be to dine out on her actual birthday but this time round, as we had just taken our second dose of the vaccination, we decided it was best to stay in. As such, we had told C that we would throw her a different sort of celebration. A week from her birthday, she received a little surprise each evening - it could be cooking her favourite dish for dinner, to getting her desserts, or some cute knick-knack from the book shop. 

It was Good Friday and a public holiday so we took her out to buy her present. She deliberated over it for months before deciding on the iPad Air so she was over the moon when she picked up her gift. Her friends at school also gave her a treat and showered her with presents. 

Western food as this is definitely her favourite. It would have been steak but the girl likes her fish too. 

Her jaws dropped when she saw these massively succulent oysters! 

We surprised her on another evening with a candle over yoghurt. She was laughing but exclaimed "it will do!" 

Pizza spread!

the must-have. :) 

Gifts from her school mates and our friends. 

The battle between the iPad and the laptop - for months she was wondering which to get but I guess her mind was finally made up. The gift was incomplete as the Pencil was out of stock and had to be brought in. 

We ask for God's guidance over you, may He always protect you and may you always seek Him first before you leap. Learn to hear His voice in all the noise and lastly, have the courage to do what is right and just.