Raising Rockstar

The kids loved “Creech” so much in the trailers, they kept asking to see the movie, which is basically Prehistoric Subterranean Creature Surfaces When Big Oil Company Drills Too Near Its Nest….

Supposedly this movie was made from the inspiration of Paramount pictures former president Adam Goodman’s 4yr old son, and intended to be a franchise movie, but it became a USD 115 mio “embarrassment” to Paramount pictures. They spent serious technology (CGI – Computer Generated Imaging) et al bucks making it. It even tested better than Spongebob, but because it grossed under USD 65mio to a budget of USD 125mio (and I guess maybe it was a bit embarrassing for people there to admit a doting dad in a top position got this done – it looks as though they tried to walk back from the initial “A top executive’s 4yr old son inspired all this,” in later press) it was still labelled a box office “bomb”.

Umm, ok if they say so, and it’s not like we have USD 115mio to say otherwise, but we still loved it. Hamster Ninja (who turned 5 in June) loved Creech, was hoping for some time after she first watched it that one of these things would show up at the SPCA, and Rockstar loved the truck stunts. It’s still an inspiration for original kiddie ideas to us. If you have little kids you might still want to check it out, it’s available online for cheap as well as on NowTV. We’d watch any sequels or mini series too, if they ever came back to make more, we watched this movie repeatedly and it was a lot better than all the High School Musical, Mickey Mouse Club tween pop star stuff.

Though nowhere is safe from Selfie Culture 😀 pic from kidzworld.com

ps: Former Paramount pictures President Adam Goodman is now President of China-backed Le Vision Entertainment in charge of English language original-content entertainment, and reporting to Le Eco Vice Chairman Zhang Zhao… 

Stable at the re-check, but mostly housebound due to risk of severe respiratory complications, JD has to find SOME entertainment…

Rockstar wanted to unwind after school by lying on the floor and shooting Nerf pellets at the ceiling.

JD be like Nope.

She has not known a life where kids with pellet guns or rocks might not end well for her…

This is her entertaining her latest little pet human with a rock

Recognise Little Hamster Ninja? (Yes those are Rockstar’s pants and shoes)

Recognise Rockstar?

Recognise me?

How time flies when you’re having fun…

Amidst a big juggling of kids’ activities and trips to the 24 hour East Island Animal Emergency Clinic on the other side of HK Island with tunnel traffic, JD rather abruptly came home. She’s not out of the woods by any means. She looks almost like she did before, except with 3 out of 4 legs shaven, dotted with IV needle marks she obsessively licks in turn. Also, she’s a delicate balance of the functionality of several vital organs that, if aggravated, would send her crashing and us rushing her right back to the emergency room. I learned not to be squeamish when asked, “Do We Resuscitate? What About A Second Time?”

The hospital was taking no chances, the transport van we rode back in even had a tank of oxygen in case she started hyperventilating, or whatever the correct medical term is for freaking out, causing her throat to close up, her lungs to fill with liquid.

It occurred to me that if anything happens I wouldn’t be able to finish writing this, so I’m rushing it. After everything, she may still be terminal.

I had travelled a couple times almost every single day to the hospital, desperate that if she was going to die, it should not be terrified, in the Animal Emergency Clinic because of another person’s thoughtless actions. JD has been with me since before I was married, when I had a bad day at work I would turn around to find her quietly curled up as close to me as she could get. She has given all of us too much unconditional love, for her life to end in the way it almost did. And so I prayed hard for a bit more time. That prayer was answered, she made it home for now, for that I must be grateful.

Obviously I didn’t take pictures when she was in bad shape because there were times I was very, very upset. What she looked like coming out of the crash and intubated is also quite disturbing unless you have some experience with that, which I don’t. Your pet is still an animal, the way they have to tie back her snout, the way her tongue lolls lifelessly… and they said it was much worse before I got there

Note of caution

JD had initially collapsed, probably triggered by a panic attack that caused her throat to close and her lungs to fill up, during a fairly routine checkup at the Mid-levels Animal Clinic, which she has been going to since we arrived in Hong Kong more than a decade ago. That day I went to the clinic 3 times, around the kids’ start-of-school schedules, my heart first sinking, then soaring, over the next few hours, as qualified and dedicated staff worked so hard to fix her, finally allowing me to bring her home on a very strong note of caution over the next 24 hours.

I communicated this both in writing and verbally to our helper, including that JD had almost died that morning, so she would understand the extent to which she needed to be careful with the dog. Then I went to take the kids to after-school activity. Less than 2 hours after I first brought JD home, I received a call saying JD had collapsed. My initial reaction was disbelief – how had her condition escalated so quickly?

I found JD at the main entrance to our huge development, surrounded by a group of helpers, some holding Park and Shop bags, and an older white gentleman who introduced himself as a vet – who proceeded to give me an almost identical diagnosis to the one JD had received earlier that morning. Lots of people run or walk that route, he had been passing by when he saw what happened.

In the taxi, JD continued to expel lung fluid. Several times she grew so still I wasn’t sure if she was still alive. I dialled the 24 hour Animal Emergency Clinic number for the first time, and the initial response (because they haven’t seen the dog and I haven’t said much) was along the lines of, “(Of course) we’re always ready, we’re an emergency clinic. <pause> I know you’re worried about your dog, but unless it’s really life or death, there’s still a queue.”

“Ok.” (Thinking: Wait’ll you see her. I really don’t think we’ll be queueing tonight.) It was a little surreal.

As I race out of the taxi carrying JD the 50 feet or so around the road barriers into the clinic and beg them to save her, my helper is still texting It Was Only Fusion (Park n Shop). Few Minutes Only. Sorry.

Those of you familiar with the area will know that Park n Shop from where we live is a good 15 minute walk, one way, possibly longer, in this blistering heat. JD had been walked all the way there AND back (so easily 40 minutes) before collapsing close to the entrance of our development, not including the time she must have been tethered outside in the heat while our helper (who was fully aware the dog had nearly died that morning) and her friends shopped.

That was how JD first landed in the emergency room of the 24 hour animal hospital.

On our way back home after finally being discharged, I texted our helper that she was NOT allowed to walk JD EVER AGAIN. The reply I got was So Today Walk Or Not? And Next Time Walk On Level 5?

I AM NOT KIDDING.

Animal lovers had been increasingly incensed by what she did, asking me if she tried deliberately to kill our dog or whether she is pathologically stupid. I don’t think it’s either. She has been working more than 10 years, completing several contracts predominantly in Singapore with jobs including she says – get this – caring for the elderly.

That night I think she “just” wanted to go out with her friends to the supermarket. Even after everything that happened, her first thought when we got back appears to have been going out for the walks again and using the dog as an excuse (obviously she already gets all public holidays and Sundays off and she is out doing grocery shopping at the places of her choice on Saturdays as well – she had previously said her friends call her to meet at certain wet markets and supermarkets to do grocery chores together. That was perfectly fine with me. But it is NOT fine to take a dog you know could die on a long, hot walk, pretending you don’t know that’s bad for her, just because you want an extra trip out. Especially when you already get out so much.)

That was why I struggled with accepting that after so long with us, this is how JD might die.

One “small” thoughtless act, very easily made – to devastating consequence. 

These kinds of mistakes are too easily made, but the cost is unthinkably high. The probability your helper deliberately commits a serious crime is a lot lower than her proverbially “innocently, helpfully” taking your dog for a “nice” long walk.

There ARE people who DO care. Local, non-local, all living in Hong Kong.

1. The vet who was passing by and saw what had happened actually tracked JD down to the clinic she was admitted to, to see if she had survived. (Yes, he really did!!)
2. The attending vets (that I know of, one senior doctor is from California, used to their native big breeds, others I think are local, maybe also Australian or British) at the Animal Emergency Clinic diligently discussed her case, shared notes, even checked with the aforementioned vet who had passed by and then tracked us down, for any information that could be used to make JD well again. They left no stone unturned. They and the nursing and office staff, again a multitude of races and nationalities that include local, Indian, maybe Aussie and British are also constantly swamped with a never ending queue of sick animals at all hours. And terrified as she was with all the sounds and smells of other sick animals and medical equipment around her, when she heard their voices she would still calm down a little.
   As a little girl, I once wanted to grow up to work with animals. I would earn a Kukkiwon-certified black belt in taekwondo despite a moderate medical condition growing up, I can jump out a plane at 15,000 feet, yet I balk at doing this – I couldn’t take a “bad day at work” being animal cruelty cases and seeing animals put down because people no longer wanted them. These people who work in the veterinary clinics and animal rescue are the most amazing brave people who love animals. They experience heartbreak and disappointment in their fellow humans regularly, and they just. Keep. Going.
3. JD’s original attending vet, an older Aussie gentleman at the Mid-Levels Clinic, returned my distraught call in the middle of the night, the night JD had been admitted to the 24 hour Animal Emergency Clinic in critical condition. He wasn’t even supposed to be working the next day, he had been handing over JD’s follow-up checks to another vet when I came to pick her up, the evening my helper caused her second and far more serious collapse. I mention that while both clinics have a wide range of ages of veterinary staff, there are definitely a few older vets and nurses as well – how many crash cases in older animals have they seen, to still be able to respond kindly to this one dog owner, how do they stay so dedicated?
4. The vet I probably least got along with had been the one on night duty during JD’s most recent crash a few nights ago – I learned not to flinch at stuff she said like, “So you need to be prepared she may crash a second time, you still want to resuscitate or not? Because you do need to consider that would really be the second time in a night…” I would however find out the next day that when JD had been found, all blue-tongued and unconscious in her cell, her lungs filled with blood-tinged fluid, as this doctor tried to revive her, at one point she had thought JD was already dead (another vet happened to mention that she’d remarked that). She had intubated anyway. JD had revived. Had she given up then, JD wouldn’t be home and happy now. For all the “you need to be prepared…” and “you need to consider..” that I got from her, she had kept going.   
5. People cared so much. I got emails, text messages, prayers, JD had visitors – whom she was finally willing to eat for haha – they even fed her her kibble, one morsel at a time.
6. “Pong-pong”:

Pong-pong is a 16 year old Pug who had just undergone throat surgery and then been discharged, when he and his fourth* owner dropped by. He looks absolutely ancient… but they have to watch the front door because he’ll stage a dramatic, joyous (and surprisingly sprightly) jailbreak out onto the street if you don’t close it quickly enough.

*Goodness knows what the first two owners were thinking, but the third owner abandoned him in a pet grooming store at age 1.5 years because he was ugly. 

It takes me awhile to understand, I ask her to repeat that (it’s Cantonese) because initially I don’t believe I have heard her correctly. Don’t all pugs look like this??! It’s got two eyes, a pug face, what did they think it was going to grow up to be, a Golden Retriever???

This is the paradox of adoption, the people with their hearts in the right place all think they wouldn’t be able to do it, they couldn’t give an animal enough love and attention, and then the fruitcakes think “let’s get us a dog because I saw a freakin’ Golden Retriever and it was so cute/clever/cuddly/whatever”?! And then there are people like Pong-pong’s owner: “I adopted three. But when they called me about a fourth, I simply didn’t have any more room.” They could use a bit of help.

When we got JD, getting a Border Collie was the furthest thing from our “life plan.” We were just starting out in banking, worked 13, 14 hour days – just like this breed of dog. American blogger Heather Armstrong likes to refer to her Australian working dog as a constant contender for “America’s Next Top @sshole”, and guess what? Then her neighbour decided to get one too! 😀 As for JD, we survived because of this nugget of advice:

When you bring a pet home for the first time, they’ve probably not had nearly as much attention as you or your kids are likely to give, and because its expectations are really low, that’s your best chance to train it. Much harder to say “no,” having said “yes,” than if you never said “yes” before. I… may have applied that to Rockstar and Xbox.
A big mistake adopting families make when they bring a pet home over the weekend is to play, play, play with the animal all weekend and then come Monday when everyone is at work or at school the animal goes batshit at being left home alone because it didn’t get the memo about weekdays. I gave up gym classes for JD (and lost 9lbs that I did not want to lose, from walking her), and for several weeks we never took JD out during “working-hours,” even on weekends. She got her long walks and runs at night.
(I had a former (senior) boss who said whatever time at night that he got home from entertaining clients, however much he had had to drink, he had to walk his Golden Retrievers and it forced him to stay active)

Almost 15 years later with JD, we’ve never looked back.

The Hamster Ninja promised JD her playmat, if she made it home. She threw in this Ikea cloud pillow off her bed too. JD sleeps with it all around the home now.

And we line the playmat with leftover disposable baby bedliners. She gets stronger listening to all the sounds around the home that she has always listened to, even the loud noises of the kids swinging from the light fixtures bouncing off the walls.

We’re resting, for what’ll soon be the next battle ahead.

Spoke too soon, it’s 2.15am and I just got back from the animal hospital where JD is now critical… they called me because they thought she might not pull through; if I don’t write about it for awhile you’ll know what happened.. meantime, the post below was written earlier

It was her first day of school recently.

About 12 hours prior, Sunday night, she was in a different uniform:

Passed her yellow-green belting

(Siblings not sitting for exam came with… and yes she also brought the hamster, though I think the human sibling was a little prouder of her achievement)

Though honestly one morning prior at ESF Multi-sports Camp, she happily announced she was a yellow-green, causing much drama and angsty hand-wringing from Rockstar and me – you cannot claim a belt you haven’t earned, it’s just horrible faux pas and disrespectful. That’s why each belt change is so valuable (and effective when you want a jumpy kid to settle and do her Taegeuk.)

So then we had to humour her by reading the grades out (best grade in blocking*) to the hamster. Yes really.

She was so wired she finally settled at around 11pm….

The Queen, having long since eschewed Elsa of Frozen, would like to be known henceforth as The Hamster Ninja.

Shissa Ninja wit da little ham.

Next morning… First day of new school!

(Found her at home one day tracing that hand on her bag “So (she could) say ‘Hi’ to friends from behind.” Uh ok…)

This is her purposeful face coming back on the first day – she hurried to pack the hamster cage and go looking for friends to play with

The next day, since The Hamster Ninja was still on staggered school start (which means alternate days, half days and a shorter week for the first two weeks of primary school before going full-day every day), we waited for Rockstar to get off the school bus before JD went for a routine follow-up check. An attending vet had “heard something, possibly a heart murmur” while checking her vitals during treatment for diarrhoea, which she has gotten fairly often throughout her years (in fact when she was first adopted she used to get it way more), and asked us to come back in for a thorough look when her tummy settled down:

One of the very few pictures we have, from  before everything else happened

Then a confluence of unexpected events would land her one night in critical condition at the 24 hour Animal Emergency Clinic….

—

*Deferring to all ranking seniors I consider defence the most important practical component of martial arts. Any untrained person can swing a fist. The ability to deflect an attack adequately is far more valuable. (Then of course come restraint, discipline, respect.)

Not too long ago The Hamster Ninja was elbowed to the floor at Funzone by an unknown boy bigger in size than Rockstar (who was at camp in HKU at the time), after refusing to be bodily shoved aside in the chest while she was skipping past him with another little girl her own age on playdate. Her friend just cried through the whole thing. So The Hamster Ninja may still be just 5, but wow is she going to work on that blocking.     

As grossly unfair as it is, being hit by a bully is part of life – if you thought about it, I bet you could name a few people who’ve metaphorically  provided the elbow-to-the-head of your little-girl-skipping-along-minding-your-own-business self. Point being, you will never be able to deflect every single elbow to your child’s head. But you can scramble and strive to encourage your child to deflect it – literally sure, but especially emotionally. Self defence is one of those things you hope you never need, and yet we all do – because feeling like we have the ability to block an elbow to the head is incredibly empowering. And it means you don’t have to take it out on anyone else –

You might think I should encourage her to just walk away from every bully (and certainly I tell both kids to pick their battles) but I think walking away too much is one way even more bullies are born. Some of them were probably really shy kids themselves, who didn’t dare stand up to their aggressor, had too many other kids walk all over them, and then eventually went to go take their resentment out on other kids…

**The unedited post below was mostly written before school started, before what was supposed to be a routine check for JD is now waiting by the phone to see if she pulls through. In and out of the vet’s for a few days. Then one night I carried my best friend of almost 15 years, clothes drenched in lung fluid and a little vomit, to the 24 hour east island animal emergency clinic. 

“Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music…” – George Carlin

Rockstar does not believe in dance for recreation. So of course I signed him up for K-Pop and Hip-Hop dance sessions. Y’know, because you figure out what your kid is most likely to run screaming from and then you pretend you didn’t know it’s like pulling teeth for them  they think people die from dancing they… don’t like it very much.

(The receptionist mentioned the first kids’ K-Pop class had filled up within 20minutes of registration opening, so I was curious, and we waitlisted for the second class. Rockstar says I should change my nickname from Sarcastic Mum to Sadistic Mum)

why do it. One of the reasons was in case someday he needs K-Pop or Hip-Hop-related neurons <sheepish> I believe in the value of seemingly unrelated stuff outside your comfort zone somehow enriching your abilities to be a better coder/ computer game designer/ trader/ standup comedian etc – one of the most brilliant derivatives structurers I knew had two Phds – one in Maths and the other in…. English Literature. Another “superquant” we knew, a blonde-and-blue-eyed French native, once impressed some of my Taiwanese RMs by writing “Collateralised Debt Obligation” in Chinese on a bar napkin over drinks “…And then I got here and realised everyone just calls it a ‘C-D-O’” 😀

Anyway, Rockstar and K-Pop. Add to that, the instructors were frequently substituted. Especially disastrous horrendous hilarious horrendous –

Because the flip side of ShinEE… (pic frm Pinterest)

…is Crayon Pop 😀 (pic from gettyimages.co.uk)

And the last minute subs invariably took it in that direction.

Me: (in broken Cantonese, after Rockstar awkwardly sits out some of the moves) Erm…. d’you maybe have an alternative dance move that might be easier for some boys? 

One of the Subs: <cheerfully, bouncily> Oh, ri-ight! (probably thinking: Who died and made you Queen Of What Boys Can Or Can’t Do In K-Pop? Boys can do anything girls can! You go right on and pop that hip boy, more the power to you!)

Therefore some days we had a Plan B.

Some of the mums of kids in the class before ours would ask the instructors to run through all the moves and record them on their cellphones so their kids could practice at home (yes really) so we always got a preview before our own class started.That worked out so well for both of them because on occasion the Queen stood in for her bro. (By which I mean “enthusiastically pranced about, limbs flailing wildly, with huge smile on her face”).

Hip-hop was a bit better. Rockstar tells me one day he turned around at the end of the class to see his 5th Dan (trans: very senior) taekwondo instructor watching from the door with barely-concealed amusement.

That’s how we heard about the K Tigers (more, Far Below*)

And Then The Kids Went…

…Splash.

… to ESF Multi-Sports Summer Camp for a week. Both kids insisted. The mix allows them both to attend together, they have different favourite sports there. By now they also meet friends from the previous three Multi-sports holiday camps, all coming back.

Now she’s better on a board, no thanks to almost every pool in our neighbourhood, all of which don’t allow the large boards humph

Now Dive Sticks

(Note all the action of the swim clinics and (I think) various secondary school-aged team swimmers tearing up and down the lanes, the pool is a real hive of activity over summer)

Then to the Courts. Head Coach to all the groups before they split up: “…I have 2 rules: Safety First…. and Have Fun.” 

Brings back fond memories ….of one of my most beloved bosses (long retired in his native Brisbane now) in the first private bank I worked in when we arrived in HK. Dryden, Prudential, once upon a time. His 2 rules were No Regulatory Or Compliance Issues Ever (“safety”) – you got fired really quickly for that – and Other Than That I Don’t Care How You Make The Money (“fun”). As a result Relationship Managers slouched about in sweats and bunny slippers when they weren’t out meeting High Net Worth clients – expensive suits hung in their cubicles, next to personal tvs and massage chairs….. and it attracted some serious talent, many of whom were semi-retired, and already self-made, themselves. …And then Dutch Fortisbank took the fun out of our day by buying and merging it humph

But, I digress:

There’s something the Queen especially needs from team ball sports – we hope it’ll help improve the quality of her hearing, her ability to listen to everything going on, and filter what she needs, to play well on a court or field.

In this one you have to sneak up to the ball from across the court, freezing when the coach looks around. The Queen got sent back to the start quite a few times, before she learned to not flail about or stomp, and finally steal away her prize-she-can-barely-run-with

waitaminit was she minding the goal on one occasion with a guarding block?

The large hall is especially challenging for her, in terms of acoustics:

“What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” is a little chaotic… (pic frm bollywoodlife.com)

Steal the medicine ball looks a lot like a battle for Middle Kingdom

“Someone’s talking – you have to go to the back”

Queen E: I didn’t know you couldn’t talk.

Coach: I said so.

Queen E: <obediently goes to the back>

Loves!

Other Little Kid: I see you (moving)!

Much Older Kid: Darn <obediently goes to the back>

Double loves! Again, very good for building the confidence particularly of the younger ones, so they speak up.

This is like Space Invaders (fine, it’s “Cowboys & Indians”) with the coaches close by to make sure the littlest ones don’t get hit too hard by any over-enthusiastic older ones

“Where are my dragons horses?”

(Note to self: Feedback to ESF Multi-Sports that they need to get horses.) 

Camp was shortened by a HK Observatory rainstorm warning that disappeared as quickly as it was raised however…

And that’s how we discovered Verm City

The last poles are a little far apart for her little legs to climb on though..

So many ways to dangle your kids from high places, so little time…

Ends.

–

 

*Far Below 🙂 Remember K-Tigers?

 

Yes some martial arts blogs really flame them for the dancing; well some of the K Tigers in interviews describe themselves as actors and performers (who also have black belts) and personally I always respect hard work,* could do without the smouldering looks when they wear their belts, and am glad they don’t wear uniform for some of the dances in this demo at the 2017 Korea Open). Oh, and there are kid K Tigers in the demo too, minute 6+; website says they train 2-3 hours daily around school.

*Learning, knowledge, is the thing no one can take away from you – it’s yours, through countless boss and employment and school and class changes, what your brain has learned to tell your limbs to do to the tune of Ring Ding Dong* stays with you. (In other words, I don’t follow the “I did so much more work than the others and we’re all going to get the same grade it’s not fair” argument. The point was not a good grade on a project, it was what your brain now knows how to do, and to use in multiple unforeseeable scenarios. And it WILL show in your abilities, and teachers, bosses can see that. Somewhere at the back of my mind is also the thought that your ability to apply your new skills in many different ways is somewhat diminished if you simply honed the same reading, writing, arithmetic skills from putting pen to paper instead of through a (much more fun) school project of seemingly unfathomable purpose.

*Ring Ding Dong is the “boys’ alternative” that the sub instructor showed us:

Apparently Ring Ding Dong was voted #1 Banned Song During College Entrance Exams in 2015. One Netizen was quoted, “It’s the devil’s song, it make(s you) fail English”. We had never heard of Shinee until the K-Pop teacher showed us the Youtube as an alternative to the girl K-Pop moves, all we can make out in the video is “Cray-zeeee”…. “Bay-beeeee”….”Cray-zeeee”…. “Bay-beeeee”…. and a lot of stomping in puddles which both kids love <hides>

Rockstar’s laptop* got left in a foodcourt this summer. The Queen had not wanted to wait for Rockstar to finish his breakfast before going in to Summer Putonghua Camp, so I walked her in first. Rockstar brushed past me hurriedly going in the doorway, on my way back out to get him. Glancing at his heavy book bag, I assumed he had stuffed his laptop back in it before leaving the table, and so I went straight down to Wan Chai to check out a first draft print for a work assignment. Rockstar had however left his laptop on the foodcourt table, assuming I would go back and sit there.

Three+ hours later, to our mutual horror, we realised our mistake. The foodcourt was now so packed with office lunchtime crowd there wasn’t a table free.

Several floors down, the Lost & Found staff are kind, but apologetic.

“No one’s turned in a laptop. I suggest you go back up and ask the foodcourt staff who were working in the morning. They may not have had time to come down here yet.”

Assumed Translation: “RIP Laptop”

Rockstar valiantly attempts to ask around for his beloved lost machine, following a harried foodcourt worker who is somehow managing to navigate a heavily-laden trolley full of used plates and with two large almost-filled trash bins attached to either side of it through the queues of office workers and packed tables. He hesitates when the worker stops to clear yet another messy table for waiting lunchers, and I realise Rockstar is trying to figure out how to make himself understood in Cantonese. That’s when I recognise another worker, a relatively older auntie, pushing a similarly laden trolley nearby. She also cleans the public toilets in the building, Queen E and I passed her just that morning.

Foodcourt Auntie blinks. “I’ve got one in our cleaner’s room, I wasn’t off work yet, so I didn’t have time to bring it down to Lost & Found.” 

We follow her in back and wait in the doorway, frequently moving aside for trolleys, washing buckets, and other foodcourt workers changing out of their cleaner’s uniform as they finish their shift. She appears to take a bit longer than we would expect. Eventually she emerges, and we realise she was rummaging about for a suitable paperbag – which she hands to us, with Rockstar’s double-Articuno-stickered machine in it.

(OMG!!!!!!!!! Like it wasn’t already enough that she saved our laptop!!!)

It’s like you just want to apologise for all the times you didn’t check if you flushed a public toilet properly before fussing your little kid out of the cubicle, or left the foodcourt table in the most awful state without a thought about who cleans it.

“Don’t ever disrespect someone cleaning your table, this lady saved your laptop!!!!!” <calms down sufficiently to proceed without exclamation marks> “Just think – if you had been a brat who decided it would be fun to mess with your leftovers by smearing the oily sauce on the table or dropping your food on the floor to squish it (we’ve actually seen random kids we don’t know do this, and the Queen has asked me before when she was younger why she isn’t allowed, she loves messes so) your laptop can join the leftovers in that greasy trash bin” (Well metaphorically, at least :P)

It was an incredibly humbling lesson. All the nicely dressed corporate types with the cool enviable jobs sitting at lunch to discuss all those important projects. Foodcourt Auntie clears the tables and cleans the toilets, I guess you could say she’s got a pretty lousy retirement job. And she saved that laptop. When Rockstar and I approached her, we’re basically a 9.5yr old child with his own laptop*. She then also decided to find us a paperbag to carry it in.

In other words, Foodcourt Auntie drove over any self-important ego we had with a monster truck.

*Rockstar has no iPad, Xbox or Playstation though; won a cellphone in a raffle draw several years ago, no line on it, he just uses it for Pokemon.. and speaking of kids with laptops…

Rockstar went to IDTech camp at HKU for a couple weeks; for this class the kids spend a day assembling that dayglo green laptop that they bring home at the end of the week

(Don’t be fooled by the small number of kids in his groups, almost all the courses were fully booked up more than a month before the break – they kept the groups very small, I think this is the first time they had this camp in HK with most instructors being computer science undergrads from HKU or the States (New York, I think some of them said))

Now for the fun part. But first, the disclaimer: None of the kids in Rockstar’s narrations are pictured in this post.

Firstly, it was not uncommon for someone in the lab to start erm, “raging,” as Rockstar calls it, when the stuff they were working on well, didn’t work. When they lost it and tried to pick up the chairs or table (yes really), they found the furniture couldn’t be moved. (Well, one of his friends managed to pick up a chair on the first day but when they came in next day onwards the chairs were swapped for the rest of the course <impressed>)

Secondly, no swearing, fighting or taking others’ stuff, on threat of being sent home for the day. (According to Rockstar, everyone really wanted to be there, so this one was super effective.)

Thirdly, “lunch”. Another spectator sport for Rockstar and new friends. One kid in the younger age group apparently came to camp each day with a fresh HKD 500 bill he would “break” by purchasing 11 ice creams or, once, a whole chocolate cake. (I asked Rockstar to see if he could pick out a difference in the kid’s productivity in the afternoon session; according to him there was a lot more “raging” after lunch.)

After the first day, Rockstar insisted on getting his lunch each day from the HKU foodcourt, which he says is just brilliant. Halfway through he discovered the curry stall and it wasn’t long before the (very nice) staff started asking him if he really ate all that chilli stuff (he does).

Fourthly, the stuff. Rockstar and his new friends were incredibly entertained by some of the gadgets the other kids, predominantly in the younger age groups, brought. As in, HKD 3,000 mouse, HKD 7000 keyboard, some headset which all the kids liked because it was the only one with a mouthpiece…

Me: How d’you guys know how much the mouse and keyboard cost?

Rockstar: The price tags were right there! Like, right where you could see it if you walked by and knew where to look! In big letters! We were like ‘OMG it really says that much on the price tag!’ Ok maybe they wrote it themselves but I don’t think so.

Me: Yeah in this case I don’t think so either (some of the kids were quite young, sounded more like super-excited doting parents sending little kid to first tech camp on HKU campus). D’you…. ever wish you had those?

Rockstar: What? No way! What if I’m really lousy (at coding) but I have the most expensive stuff?? <cringes> But they look nice, and we were like Whoa!! Go see what that kid’s got over there. The older groups all seem to use cheaper stuff though. Also, I’d be so scared I was going to lose it at camp. Oh, Guy With Headset lost it right away.

Me: !!

Rockstar: <nodding vigorously> Yeah!! Someone else was walking around wearing them. 

Me: What, kids beat each other up over tech accessories now, not sneakers? 😛

Rockstar: Nah, when they were gone from his desk he went to the instructor who asked, “Anyone seen a headset?” and one kid called out, “I wonder where it could be?” – and he was the one wearing it! They still threatened to call his parents if he did it again, though.  

I mention by way of saying I don’t think anyone steals stuff for real in this camp, if they saw something they liked they’d probably just go home and ask their own parents for it 😀 

After seeing how privileged our kids can be nowadays, we really needed the laptop foodcourt scare lesson.

#89

Remember when I said the Queen enjoys spicing things up when nothing seems to be happening…

Queen E: (conversationally) You know Daddy <sidles over and indicates his halfway-through dinner> …….that really looks like my Imaginary Friend.

Kings: That I am eating?!

Queen E: <nods convincingly, eyes wide open> His name is “Fish”.

Rockstar: <ROARS with laughter>

Queen E: <blandly> Yah Ko-ko, and we mustn’t waste food…

Overheard, roughly to the tune of the original “Spiderman” theme:
“Hamster-land, hamster-land, does what-ever, hamsters can…”

Bedtime is often a struggle…

Me (reading): …Little Miss Fabulous had fabulous hair… that everyone else had to follow…
Queen E:(after a few pages) <frowns> She always wears the same shoes, though…

After nightly prayer

Queen E: <plaintively> Oh Mummy, if I’m bad, does that mean I won’t go to Heaven?

Me: ?? !!!! Erm, erm, there are many different beliefs in this world and many people do believe that what happens to you after you die has to do with how you behaved in your life. Christians believe that you are saved when you believe, not by what you do or not do. BUT you are then called to be “good” because you don’t need to be, but still want to be. In fact, it’s supposed to make you want even more to be good. I like to refer to that as “conscience” –

Queen E: Ok, how about That Place In Between? When you’re not good or bad enough?

Me: What?? You mean like Purgatory? Where did you ever hear about “The Place In Between”???

Queen E: Well, that place. Ko-ko said –

Me: No way. When would you guys ever come up with this – Rockstar! Can you come in here for a minute please?

Rockstar: <eventually opens door and peeks in> Yeah what?

Me: Did you tell your sister that <pause> if she doesn’t make it to Heaven she might end up in Purgatory?”

Rockstar: <bursts out laughing> Whaa-at? What in the wha-aaat??

Me: <turn to her and catch her facial expression> It’s already past 10.30pm, had enough yet, how long more do you want to delay bedtime for?

Queen E: <still trying><theatrically tragic face> But… what’s going to happen to me when I die?

Me: We can delay awhile more if I can take a picture of that face.

“That” face

ps: She fell asleep a bit past 11. On a day of multi-sports camp, and an hour on the bouncing castle after. No nap during the day.. 

Kindy Graduation

In an intimate class ceremony before the break, our second child received her certificate of completion following 2 years of Kindergarten, 5 years after her brother did the same before her. We don’t plan on having any more kids, so you know we mean it when we say we’re happy both kids got to attend this kindy, and grateful they took our monsters in no one got hurt I don’t think the kids are doing drugs for 2 wonderful years of early learning and stimulation of imaginations, support, and memories. (Can’t blame me for having a little fun now we’re leaving for good right..)

Well we’re coming right back if we somehow end up with a third kid (IF, that is – IF they’ll have us. I remember during Queen E’s admissions she had an external activities classmate who told us they hadn’t yet made interview at the kindy – there were 700+ applicants for…. maybe 150 spots? Sometimes in the bustle of school run during admissions season we would pass desk staff over the phone erm, “politely managing expectations” of applicants regarding the waitlist..)

Anyway..

We even saved a set each, of the turquoise-and-navy uniforms our kids wore (matching rubber boots model’s own, it was pouring that day) because..

This is the new school uniform going forward:

Tara! (Although the boys won’t get to wear headbands..)

(…the mascots will. Yay!)

I have now managed to find an excuse to post a picture of our 15-year old Border Collie in gachapon-procured bunny ears. My work here is done <dusts off hands>

For real though, we love this kindergarten: They were really there for us when we were all OMG Baby. And baby now has to go to proper school. And “school” now refers to early education that bears little resemblance to what we ourselves remember when we were kids. What are we supposed to do now???

So Hillside, we love you. And now people (yes, all two of them) who search my blog will send Wonder Woman through your doors with a border collie dressed as a bunny BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

That was my way of saying dear readers, that this is a personal blog that I do not publicise, so caveat lector. But no, I’m not on pseudonym 🙂

And now without further ado, the Life and Times of Her Highness At Kindy, In A Few Choice Photos.

This was shortly after a school theatre trip to watch The Way Back Home. It involved just a couple actors and….. very home made props. Almost everything you could make with just paper and other scraps. Then the kids came back to school to construct their own.

In the last few weeks her school bag strap broke, and so she was allowed to carry the Pom-pom-ed Zebra Bag. The sunglasses are mine (but yes she wears em Like A Boss) – schoolrun some days was in the blazing sun, just because of where our block is

This one was “an introduction to computational thinking skills for young children; (they were) encouraged to analyse the problem, break it down into smaller parts and then develop step by step instruction” to get the bear to the honeypot

I think this one was from the various-building-of-structures phase (note bridge diagram on easel)..

…which culminated in…

…the “Parthenon Challenge”!

(This being the real Parthenon) – pic from Wikipedia

The kids were challenged to build a structure with materials from around the school (and much brainstorming – they ultimately went with board and paper cups), “because the ancient Greeks didn’t have any modern technology or machines and yet were able to erect such heavy and tall pillars”…

…that ended up strong enough to stand on!

(Recall, Queen E loves snakes!)

(Among Others; yes it’s real – she had a huge kick out of the animal visitors, especially some of the more exotic ones!)

Then they designed their own snakes and ladders and took turns playing it

…And of course many, many, many “junk modelling” structures and wacky little inventions she would bring home almost every single day.

We accumulated easily two HUGE bags of the stuff, and so over the last week of school and with probably our one and only purchased blank canvas (everything else being recycled many times over):

    …we started making our own Kindy souvenir…

…finally settling on this… (Anyone recognise any of your donations to the junk modelling table on our walls? 😀 )

So one weekend Kings came home and a lot of the stuff on the walls had changed, and he was “Erm, does anything ever fall off the walls?”

…and this.

The flower is from Queen E’s “Not-S0-Secret Friend” – each child makes a paper flower and presents it on graduation day to another friend; we then stuck it on a background that was one of Rockstars’ old artjamming canvases – it’s supposed to be Minecraft Redstone, which is about the only time you will see Rockstar use colour willingly haha – and the giant bean pod did come home one day from the junk modelling table.

Not…. that we didn’t also come home with this brilliant thing:

How freaking awesome is that? 

Goodbye, Hillside..

Thanks for all the memories.

ps: 

“…for every student to be the best they can be…” – on the board of the classroom Queen E’s little graduation group used – I really, really like that. Aside from corresponding large appetites and apparent need for a bit less sleep than other kids, our two children who have gone through this kindergarten have had very different personalities (as well as strengths and weaknesses 🙂

Rockstar began K1 roaming the empty stairwells by himself during Free Play (where the kids can choose what they want to do), because he couldn’t stand the noise and chaos of the open concept with the entire school running about. (He’s fine with me telling this now because anyone who meets him today after 2 years at Hillside Kindy and 5 at Kennedy Pri School (both of the ESF Group) not to mention ESF Multi-sports camp – we’re on our third camp with both kids now – will find that quite difficult to believe 🙂 

Queen E on the other hand… Looks forward every day to the adventure and unpredictability of activities like Free Play. Where Rockstar was Accidental Tourist Goes To Kindergarten, Her Highness was “Why Are You Still Here, Mum-may?” on her first day. She’ll go looking for unpredictable outcomes if nothing seems to be happening. Unlike her hyper-sensitive brother, she’s slightly hard of hearing (we have to syringe her ears and watch the colds because her hearing tends to get especially affected when she has a cold). And where Rockstars colours of choice are almost always muted – black or navy – the Queen is one big psychedelic explosion of colour. Exciting times, or as the Queen sang with her friends on graduation day “The future’s looking bright to me!” Just so.   

#88

(From Kings’ public Facebook:)

Kings: I’m going to count to three and you’re going to walk or I’m going to smack you.

Queen E: Why does everyone always count til three? Why not count til ten?

Kings: <gives up><carries her>

She liveth dangerously.

Rockstar: <authoritatively> Mum. I’ve been watching Super Nanny. Here’s what you need to do with Queen E. 

Queen E: I’m listening, Ko-ko.

Me: (to Rockstar) And yet you have no idea why you set her off.

Rockstar: You need a timeout chair, see. Then you put the kid in the timeout chair for the same number of minutes as their age in years.

Me: How d’you keep the kid in the chair?

Rockstar: <knowledgeably> This is where discipline comes in.

Me: You have no idea, do you?

Rockstar: I could…. <enthusiastically> can I hold her down in the chair? I volunteer for this job!

Me: You seem strangely keen on self harm.

Queen E: <hisses theatrically><bars teeth><claws air vigorously around Rockstar>

JD: <barks around mouthful of tennis ball while following us around the bedroom> Wroof! Wroof-wroof, WROOFFF!

Me: Why is JD making that sound so much lately? What changed? (Usually she just puts the ball wherever we are and stares at it until her eyeballs almost fall out)

Queen E: She’s trying to tell us something. She’s trying to tell us Ko-ko threw the ball at her. 

Rockstar: (from depths of living room sofa without looking up from laptop) I heard that…

Me: That is like, the worst attempt at telling ever, what was even the purpose of that? We all know your bro <raises voice> HASN’T MOVED FROM HIS LAPTOP IN WAY TOO LONG.

Rockstar: <IGNORES>

Queen E: I don’t know, I thought I was trying… <shrugs theatrically> I should probably try harder if I really want to get him in trouble.

Rockstar: <in same tone as before> I heard that…

Queen E: See Mummy, he can hear you say he should stop playing Minecraft now. 

Me: Good effort.

Queen E: I know, right?

“People forget that Mozart wrote for commissions. There’s a thing in psychology where they think if it’s popular it can’t be serious…”

– Sir Anthony Hopkins, who went from playing:

Macbeth (pic from sirtonyhopkins.tumblr.com)…

..which he ended up abandoning mid-run for Hollywood, and which brought him to…

Playing the brilliant psychiatrist and cannibal Hannibal Lecter (gif from filmfatale.com)…

…winning him Best Actor at the Academy Awards, which kept him from heading on back to BBC classics and literature, instead….

Exploring sibling rivalries in something a little more high end than Cosplay (pic from collider.com)

(On an aside, this Odin-Loki scene was so powerful I googled Tom Hiddleston after seeing it – no surprises “Loki” is another Eton alumni (like Mr Fantastic Beasts who went to school with Prince William. The British Royal, Not Gangsta Rapper))

(“Loki” also attended Cambridge. Beat that with a hammer, Thor)

Hands up, anyone else who saw the scene above and wondered why these two were in a blockbuster comic book adaptation popcorn movie wearing capes, rather than onstage spouting gibberish (fine, “English”) while holding a skull. Because the capes are similar? 😛

“Alas, poor Yorick…” (pic from flickfilosopher.com)

Anyway, back to Transformers.

Sir Anthony’s role as Earl-Something Standing Next Transformer With The French Accent – pic from dailymail.co.uk

Sir Anthony, as director Steven Spielberg has reportedly insisted on calling him, is known for some very serious hard work, practicing lines up to 300 times until they feel completely natural (what an inspiration for good ole’ hard work!), once delivering a full 7 pages of lines related to legal jargon at one go. Sir Anthony has Asperger’s (high-functioning autism). He has been known to describe his own childhood, “I grew up absolutely convinced I was stupid.” He has also been known to struggle with alcoholism, once climbing behind the wheel of a car and disappearing for two months.

This is about how we all have our demons, and how somewhere in the struggle between our demons and our better angels, is a way to divert the energy toward creating something positive. I believe in some small part this is what Sir Anthony does. And it is truly inspiring for the challenges he faced. How amazing is it, to turn your demons into fuel to play Hannibal? It’s about how someone innately anti-social and on the spectrum yet found his calling, and a way to shine. For we are all called to do the creative, sincere best with the hand we are dealt.

And then Sir Anthony went to do a Transformers movie.

Listening to that voice delivering lines from a Transformers movie was really trippy. That same voice describes his experience thus:

“These computer whiz kids… whatever they do, I don’t understand any of it at all….
That’s a world way beyond me, I’m amazed… a new reality…” “When I saw that scene, with the.. <gestures> I laughed… …sheer magic. Magic….” 

Screen Shot of “that” scene off the interview

– Sir Anthony Hopkins, Transformers*: The Last Knight Interview 

Indeed, one of Mark Wahlberg’s most memorable lines in the movie is “Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.” (There are whole articles plus discussion thread about the extent to which technology is magic based on this quote, originally by the brilliant futurist Arthur C. Clarke.)

Sir Anthony, knighted for real at Buckingham Palace for his “services to the arts” back in 1993, turns 80 later this year, gets in a car at 130 km/h with just the question “I don’t have to drive it (at that speed) do I?” and appears to still be on a trip, to be constantly amazed by what life brings, what technology can do today.

Because really, “Magic” is spelled with a Capital T.

Following Transformers, Sir Anthony returns to BBC’s King Lear.

He must be having the time of his life.

Ps:

1) *Transformers movies, multi-budget and all, have a sometime reputation for making no sense in storyline, nonetheless being affairs of spectacular special effects. And here’s why I thought to look – Rockstar’s tech camps on occasion have boasted camp directors who, in the first minutes of their introductory presos, have mentioned a previous life working on special effects for the Transformers (and Minority Report) movies before yes! moving into tech education for children and youth.

How Did They Transform That for the movies? You may be strangely mollified to know that they don’t. I mean, obviously the toys I had as a child did, which is one reason I loved them – they were these wonderful swivel-y, fold-y, fidgety plastic things that provided endless fascination because you really did physically fold a robot into a car or plane or even insect (some probably being Hasbro knock-offs). For the movies however, they find a pivot-point and then literally chop off arms or legs and well, do absolutely anything they have to, to get the robot into the car/plane/ stereo/ dinosaur. Thank you, unnamed nerds in the depths of computer animation rooms of film industry, for trumping my OCD with Creative License.

See also The Science of Transformers: The Real Technology Behind The Transforming Robots

2) Check out this visual of the extent to which international box offices now increasingly drive Hollywood: 

And here’s where I really go off on a rant:

Hollywood movies in international markets? FINE. Better than fine. Every so often however, Hollywood decides to export something from abroad into their big, franchise machines. Donnie Yen as a Jedi in Star Wars?

Not Donnie Yen (pic from knowyourmemes.com)

N-ot so fine. I mean, some things simply weren’t meant to go together, it’s the unique history and culture that make them exactly what they are, and seemingly taking only the bits you want just seems…….  wrong. There’s “creative license” and then there’s creative license. Like it does both Star Wars AND martial arts an injustice. 

Jackie Chan with Chris Tucker in Rush Hour is another pet peeve. Slightly mollified because it’s a comedy (at least it’s not meant to be serious), but still: Highly respected Asian movie stars in Asian Kung Fu movies hit Hollywood radar. Hollywood’s all “gotta get me some-a that”. Completely transplants Asian guy into Star Wars franchise because Star Wars Gooood. Kung Fu Gooood. Asian Kung Fu Expert And Movie Star In Star Wars As Jedi must be SUPER GOOD. 

No, no, it’s not. Chopping robot parts to fit into car designs was fine as “Creative License”  goes, but somehow the martial arts transplants are less so. Ditto the whole ninja craze exported to the west. Ninjago. Wearing a mask and jumping around fighting – get this – what look like Samurai bad guys who somehow don’t need to cover their faces but the “good ninjas” do? It works for Spiderman. But ninjas, the concept of ninjas, was not heroic, they covered their faces because it was not honourable, they were not going to save the world, and then someone decided Let’s Also Try And Make The Ninjas Turtles. And somehow the whole thing works in a more wholesome way than the Kardashians. 

By the time the turtles eat pizza (OMG!!!) and start beat-boxing, no one cares anymore. I hope the SPCA puts up awareness signs that turtles don’t really eat pizza. Oh, you think that doesn’t happen? Umm.. After Finding Dory for eg, Youtubers started setting the record straight about what it REALLY takes to keep a Blue Hippo Tang.