Raising Rockstar

This Father’s Day, Kings and I happened to have the pleasure of hearing Hank Fortener who runs Adopt Together speak for the first time, and when he got to the part about his adopted brother from China (our pastor btw adopted two kids, now teenagers, from China as well as two other kids from the States who I think are now attending university) I wanted to share the story.

Hank Fortener (pic from hankfortener.com)

Hank describes his trepidation when his brother Matt, who has Asperger’s (in a podcast interview I then found, it appears Matt also had 9 facial surgeries to correct a double cleft lip and palate) wants to throw a big high school graduation party before going off to college to study Accounting. (Matt btw is now also Dean’s list)).

Worried his younger brother will get a no-show at his party and be terribly disappointed, Hank initially starts pulling people – anyone he knows, the pizza guy, anyone – to come to his brother’s party. As the party progresses, Hank’s pointing out all the other people who came, even as his little bro is mumbling “No one’s coming,” and at 2pm there’s like one kid who shows up and Hank’s making a big deal of it………

At 2.15pm, there’s this car that pulls up and it’s full of kids. Cool kids, Hank observes, kids who dress nicely, who look good, like they get invited to other parties a lot….. And then the next car pulls up. And the next, and the next after that…..

5 cars of kids later, there’s this kid bringing up the rear – Heath – who’s engineered the whole thing, and Hank gives us the visual: “fastest kid in Ohio,” “has muscles in his jaw that I’m never gonna have in my whole body”….. Basically, Alpha Kid has engineered for all the cool kids to come over, and as Hank is trying to thank him profusely for saving his brother Matt’s party (or rather, “life”), Heath looks over to Matt, standing next to him, looks him right in the eye, and says “(We’re late, because) We always save the best for last – and Matt – you’re the best.” Matt would turn to his older brother Hank and beam, “This is the happiest day of my life.“

This is the post that never made Mother’s Day (couldn’t finish), and well, hearing about Matt and Heath kinda helped me say it just after Father’s Day. My parents initially wanted me to have 3 or 4 kids (not anymore haha), the people I’ve dated seriously always wanted several kids…… But I famously preferred animals, not well, humans.

(Rockstar would snark along the lines of Well, We Could Tr-y…. to which Her Highness, his Partner in Crime in this respect, would then vigorously meow her head off 😀 (This btw is their response to my explanation why they get disciplined and the dog doesn’t really – you can mostly spoil pets and you will not be too negligent of your responsibilities towards society. But for another thing, the dog doesn’t say all these annoying little snarky things :D))

Animals will not grow up to hold jobs/possibly also nuclear weapon launch codes/get married/have families/ raise kids of their own…….. Raising another human who has the capacity to someday cause a great deal of pain to other people is probably the biggest responsibility you usually don’t think about.

Oh yeah, also, like the evil wizard Jaafar, your heart will no longer beat within you but will instead tell you not to follow too closely behind (yes this is Queen E’s latest antic when she goes to art class “which has naughty boys that (she) fight(s) with”).

Think about it. Are those not absolutely terrifying reasons to not have kids? (I have actually a good friend several years older than me who, after dithering it over with her other half for years recently told me n-ope, we weighed the pros and cons and we’ve Decided Not To. Our 6-figure monthly salaried job and trading portfolio shall be our “babies”. They will take care of us in our old age hahaha. I have also friends who struggled with infertility for many years. This makes me look at Mother’s Day and Father’s Day differently as well.) Choice is truly a great privilege.

Dis is the Giant Hand that protects Evil Jaafar’s heart, encased in a glass tower in the old Captain Sinbad movie (pic from monsterkidclassicforum.yuku.com)

(And where can we get Giant Hand especially for Queen E, right? :D)

But back to Matt and Heath. Suddenly, something like parties, which during your own teenage years you never cared about, will make you oh-so-incredibly vulnerable.

What if you had a Matt?

What if you went pulling the pizza guy and all your friends to a high school party, even as you knew that any effort you made would always be second best to Alpha Kid showing up with all the other cool kids?

What if you had a Heath? 

Then it would be in your ability to “make” one of the most important days in another person’s life. You could be Giant Spikey Hand for someone else’s kid. How Could You Not? 

So maybe you grew up being Matt. Maybe now you’re a parent and your kid is Heath to your former Matt. Well here’s the thing – when someone has been mean, you may not be able to choose the kind of day you’re having (realistically, right? Even if you have a will of steel, you might have a bad day for like, 5 minutes, before you pick yourself up) but you can totally choose what kind of person you want to be. 

Being “nice” is an active choice, not to perpetuate behaviour you do not respect. You might look at it as a difficult, much harder option… but choosing Nice is also the biggest celebration of the fact you had a choice. One of my former mentors (who constantly reminded me is not always a nice guy) describes Choice Nice: Those things you feel when someone is mean to you – do you like them, why would you ever want to be like them?

“Doing the right thing” may not always seem cool, but hey, if you’ve got a Heath then your kid is already cool enough for both of you 🙂

Have a good week ahead, dears…

ps: almost forgot – pic of the kids, before I get umm, complaints 😀

hi.

(Yes, she is the youngest and smallest and her feet can barely reach the stretching bar. Her very experienced instructor – can’t believe he coaches both national teams and little kids haha – regularly checks that her little foot is planted firmly on the floor while stretching)

The best things in life are the cardboard boxes. Y’know, that old adage about how the best toys for kids are cardboard boxes…. and their imaginations. (Some cheek, me saying that – Rockstar is a huge technology nerd and Her Highness will flood you with requests to join interest classes (art, sports, music – just not phonics or <snort> math) because she wants to meet new kids (usually “naughty” older boys who need a telling off. Seriously). Well anyway.)

Here’s one.

The kids are eating crackers and cheese (in Rockstar’s case make that extra stinky blue) in an inflatable swan on the bed. Queen E umm, saw the swan one evening when I was scouring “cardboard box” sales for ideas to entertain the kids and wanted it. One thing led to another and well lemme just say after this the characters “4-f-t” shalt always leap out of the page at me. (For real, though – WHO makes 4ft pool swans?! I thought this was one of those inflatable swim rings for one child, it was HKD 100-something…)

They decided to also try eating supper by camp-light

At 11.40pm (hope this wasn’t on a school night) Rockstar decides to have a parade. So dis issa 4ft inflatable swan being forced through the door.

<squishing rubber sounds>

(And yes we have the Redundant Slide too – as in, they could slide out of bed, but sometimes just jump over the side too – I…fairly recently eyed a friend’s twin mid-bunk beds and couldn’t get the image of my kids hurling themselves from one to the other on occasion)

You might think this is nuts but then you might agree having little kids is nuts. Little kids push you to find all kinds of ways to use your erroneously purchased inflatable swan (and stripped bedroom because workmen had to come look at the faulty air-conditioning unit) and think Now, How Can I Keep Stuff From Breaking The Kids From Breaking Myself Sane These Two Busy For Awhile More?

I have visited friends on playdates where there are: 1) huge (I mean huge – like, a whole squatter extended family can live there) tent facilities crowding out the tv and filling the entire living room. Bonus: No tv! 2) bed frames turned into ball pools 3) sheets over the dining tables and chairs… and I once received 4) a video clip of Rockstar’s friends and  siblings learning to heelie (the shoes with the wheels in the heels) inna cleared out living room, clutching at giant wheeled luggage as they rolled – then whizzed- along.

Necessity is the mother of invention when you and your laptop need to be alone.

Swan ate-a Rockstar or two (and yes we have a crazy-loud disco dance mat too; brought it to playdate, and for some reason the kids were not invited to bring the thing back haha)

I smell a Halloween Costume in the making.

(But Icelandic pop star beat us to it by like, a decade) – pic from zimbio.com

Dis is work, people

Queen Elsa’s Kindy has a worm farm. (Previously silk worms, but the kids have since released the emerging moths..) Naturally, parents were called upon to contribute any earthworms we might come across. Parents who go fishing might have more luck, (bait shop will probably pack some nicely for you in tupperware) but since I don’t know any bait shop nearby, we went to look under a few rocks on one of JD’s regular 3km walks at the Peak, over the recent Dragon Boat holiday.

We lucked out – Dis issa worm, people

After the rain, turning over a few paving stones yielded 3-4 small earthworms, but it took us much longer to actually catch one unharmed. (Speaking of which – did you know how fast these things disappear back in the soil when you unearth them? Still quite impressed…) Because we have no idea what the elasticity of earthworms is (how hard can you pull before they snap <cringe>) we kept digging too far under them – and they kept sliding away and escaping.

Finally…… Success!

This is Princess Sophia Queen E (as in, she gave the worm a middle name after her own):

Dis Issa Very Unhappy Worm

Queen E carries her worm the rest of the 1.5km walk back.

Excerpt of conversation with mum friend:

MF: You have to keep it alive till school?

Me: Omg is it hard to keep the thing alive??

MF: Google it….

Me: …. 🙁  …gross eyeful…

MF: Ah yes!!! ….(Once had to) google tonsillitis….

So anyway:

WHO are all these people who tried to teach earthworms to count???

Come morning however, Princess Sophia is barely alive. Really didn’t expect that, I thought people on survival camp trips do things like keep live earthworms (won’t go bad!) in their waist pouches for “protein” – how hard can it be to keep a worm in an open bag in an old sea monkey tank alive? On the way to school I email:

“…dug up a small earthworm yesterday in a park… found it dying this morning ..(Queen E) will be very disappointed….. we have a big favour to ask… transport the “sick” worm into the worm farm anyway…”

Immediately we get this reply, “No worries, will do our best to ensure “Princess Sophia” makes a full recovery in the worm farm… 😉 “

They’re lifesavers.

ps: We should probably stick to bait shops next time because I think we secretly killed a worm that could otherwise have lived a long happy life on the Peak. Bait shop worms have their days numbered anyway, they’re getting an upgrade in Kindy worm farms.

Awhile ago, we bought this thing online for Queen E’s birthday. Several cancelled orders later (because no one wanted to ship it), the pieces arrived. Added bonus: saved us getting a Lego set. I am guilty of calling Scratch projects and Ikea assembly instructions Lego sets. Everything’s a Lego set. Or a jigsaw. Like, all those little kiddie pretend building sets they sell for tonnes of money (and convenience) and the there’s lotsa real-life stuff you can use..

Over here we have under-utilised cheap free child labour to assemble furniture (NO glass; those are child-safe mirrors).

JD builds a mean Guidecraft Dress-up Carousel.

But Queen E did quite a bit with the alan key.

dis is an alan key (pic from popista.com)

Lego instructions separated at birth

The instructions are quite comprehensive, the kids could search the parts for those little alphabet stickers… we put Queen E on Alphabet Location Detail… but we still ended up having to reassemble this thing a couple times. Ok fine, I held stuff up while they reassembled. And bickered about reading the instructions wrong.

Although here she’s using her little turtle magnets to pull the screws back out after unscrewing them.

The turntable was tonnes of fun…

Almost done…

…and voila! Now Anna and Whatsisname can go for a spin (while she takes an egg break)

Joyously, Queen E moves all her Animal Subjects in. (Like, the look on her face is just cray, okay.)

Voila! Animal high-rise that goes round…. and round….. and round…… and round…………!

Ps: I just got back. In a manner of speaking. Been awhile, my marbles were elsewhere.

#391/79

From one of those parenting books I let Rockstar read because, you know, it’s the least amount of effort to get material 😛

So, Lego builds, very Rockstar. Knocking something over (because she wants to improve on it), very Queen E.

Rockstar: (after reading) This is meant to be sarcastic, right?

Queen E: <triumphantly> Brains don’t have hands! <wiggles fingers>

This is what he looks like, back from trip and learning he did well ok..

Rockstar’s coming back after a full-day school trip:

Rockstar: Mum! We met a bull who was raised by water buffalo. He thinks he’s a water buffalo.

Me: Aren’t they almost water buffalo? Your music results came today.

Rockstar: No-o, there’s a difference. When they hang out in the water he doesn’t always join them. <pause> Did I pass?

Me: Yeah. You did better than pass.

Rockstar: <brightens slightly> Ohh.. I got… a Merit? Billy – that’s the bull – is quite smart. He stole a sandwich. 

Me: Oh. No one freaked out that he might get sick? What was in the sandwich? No, a Merit is 120-129. You got 130. Basically you scraped through by the skin of your teeth past a Merit.

Rockstar: Yesss. <fist pump> I passed. Billy stole a lettuce sandwich.

Me: Dude. You didn’t just pass.

Rockstar: I thought you said I didn’t get a Merit.

Me: You don’t know what a Distinction is, do you.

Rockstar: Huh?

Me: It never came up what the one better than a Merit is. Yes there is a grade better than Merit. (Belatedly I realise, it never came up; and I like that his music teacher also never told him what the scorings were either, just got him to play his best)

Rockstar: IDK… <shrugs> But I did well?

Me: <slowly> You-got-130. It is better than a Merit. You did well and you were also lucky. Like Billy the bull. He didn’t steal something like ham and cheese and get really sick. How come no one stopped him?

Rockstar: They said he’s quite smart and everyone was laughing. And it was lettuce, he could smell it and chewed through the bag. It was (Muslim friend)’s sandwich. (To which I nod, because I remember Rockstar’s classmate – she once responded to hearing we are Malaysians with, “Oh it’s nice to be able to just buy most kinds of candy when we holiday there – you don’t have to worry so much about the animal oils.” That was how I first noticed – the very local counter ladies at Marks and Spencer Foods will also teach you to buy the vegetarian options if you need to avoid animal oils in butter etc)      

Rockstar: Is this…tinction hard to get?

Me: Um…. y-eah?

So I said we would only tell you if Rockstar had passed or failed his grade 2 Piano Exam and well yeah then he scraped through a Distinction. Dithered about it and couldn’t tell the story without saying it… and ah well if this is be some post about music exam for kids, then here’s mah song. It’s titled Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

Oh look I am going to milk parenting for personal profit by an advertisement and endorsement of Dogeared products – Whee! (pic from purseblog.com)

Ok lemme get this out of the way first:

1) No Rockstar was not secretly gifted in music and we wrote it this way cos it would be a good story

2) No we weren’t secretly hoping/aiming for a distinction; because the difference in time, effort and emotional well-being (especially if your child is already not particularly interested and risks loathing music for the rest of his life) between a fair shot at a distinction and a fair shot at a pass was too great

3) No we are not now getting the HKD 80,000 piah-no. Because

a) already said that if he really gets through another exam (WITH A PASS, not the D-word) in a couple years then we will consider. Unless the keyboard we have right now goes to pieces.

b) Rockstar does have to adjust his “keyboard touch” between an electronic keyboard and a proper piah-no, in order to still follow all the expression required in his pieces. Also extra erm, “neuron-growing music practice” to do so right… <sheepish> Next time you pass a music instrument showroom, don’t rush your kid away, let them mess on the different pianos/ keyboards as long as you can before they make you buy it before they throw you out of the shop. Yes I am that OCD. Go back up and look at the picture above. I mean, as long as he doesn’t actually fail and have to repeat,  the “cost” of “risking” distinction or merit was worth the “benefit” of pushing him to develop the motor skills to “adjust”. (If you have a musically talented child you should really be reading me with caution haha)

I really love the additional “freedom” that not aiming for a higher mark allows us, in terms of learning experience. Rockstar’s still only gonna play for short periods at any time, albeit it’s now every time he walks past the keyboard. Speaking of which,

4) Yes the examiner was not fooled and did observe a lack of consistency in for e.g., Scales, and it’s on his transcript several times that he made mistakes, including in the pieces  (which I tell him is from simply not practicing enough). Ergo,

5) Part of getting that score was luck, part of it was not luck. 

Luck: He did not get sight reading or aural that he couldn’t answer, in the exam. He could certainly have, and he’s not particularly musical, or creatively so. He didn’t do super-well either, but we had been preparing that he could really flunk those.

Not Luck: He really can play his exam pieces quite well. Firstly, we already missed enrolling him for exam twice. Also, both kids in general have relatively good fine motor skills from the crazy Lego-ing and tower-stacking. For Rockstar, we milked it to the max, that he was sufficiently coordinated to pull off more elaborate pedalling, slurs, staccatos, pauses, moderation in speed and tone required of the pieces. Y’know, because he could’ve flunked some of the other bits, depending what he got on the day.

But then Rockstar being Rockstar, it was much easier to get him to do that part well, rather than to get him to practice scales and arpeggios… which is like pulling teeth <cringe>.

–

Epilogue: Rockstar is still the fusspot from earlier posts btw, he can still abruptly insist on drastic and immediate changes on a bad day.

This is him being creeped out by the Miss’ touchy-feely one day.

The latest complaint these last weeks has been that when he appeared sleepy (or bored), a music tutor apparently coo-ed “Oh, dear boy, are you sleepy ah, come I massage you ah, I give very good face massage one, will wake you right up ah,” to which Rockstar  snapped, “Don’t touch me.” “No ah, cannot like that ah, I tell your mother ah…” (Obviously this is not in his actual primary school..)

That evening I picked up a seriously indignant child. And then he got really, really mad at me for laughing (but really ok, a few weeks ago, he complained someone else “was too critical,” too strict. Which is laughable since us mums share tutors or student practice slots and one mum friend recently went to look for someone even more strict :D)

Me (to kids): I am going to teach you some Manglish/Singlish. This. This right here with the serial tutor and activities changing, is what we call Anyhow Oso Can One.

Rockstar: Wait, wha-?

Queen E: Mummy’s not speaking Eng-lish.  Shissa alien <beams>. 

Me: What does that make you two.

Rockstar: Adopted. 

ps: No bulls were hurt in the making of this post. And you know I don’t really endorse stuff (cf Dogeared pouch) or invite blog traffic, right? 

#392/ #77    

Walking on the street…

Queen E: I hope no one sees us…

Me: <worriedly> Why? I took out a nice change of clothes, you’re dressed quite nicely –

Queen E: But you’re not, Mum-may. 

Me: Next time, remind me not to feed or walk you so I have more time to put together a better look.

Queen E: <same expression, without skipping a beat> You look nice, Mum-may.

———————————————————————————————————-

Handing me a trading card… 

Rockstar: Here, Mum. You can keep it.

Queen E: Wait wait lemmeseeitlemmeseeitlemmeseeit – <cheerfully> ok it’s not shiny, you can have it. 

(5 mins later Her Highness gives me her own shiny card, also from Rockstar.)

 ———————————————————————————————————

Overheard on the playground…

Queen E: Hey! Don’t throw things at my brother! <stamps foot for emphasis> He’s my brudda!!

Me (to Rockstar): Hear that darling? (Rockstar doesn’t react.) Isn’t that nice –

Queen E: (still yelling) I. Want to throw things at my. Brudda!!

———————————————————————————————————-

One fine day…

Queen E: Mummy, why do we need the sky?

Me: Erm… Erm… That’s where the clouds are, we need them for rain, we need a place for birds to fly…

Rockstar: <face palms> Without sky there would be no atmosphere. Then all living things would die. Become extinct – 

Queen E: <shakes head> No, no, you’re (both) wrong. <authoritatively> You need the sky for rainbows <beams>

Life issa JOY.

Someone call Cute overload…

Queen Elsa just got her uniform. She still has a little while more until actual lessons, but she’s literally counting down the days.

Then look out world. (This is really the pose and expression she struck ok…)

…Couldn’t hold it forever though… Pfft (snort)

Rockstar was quite relieved to hear she would not be in the same class as he.

Me: …Because he’s worried you won’t listen to him if ever he gets your group of little kids to help with.

Queen E: Oh. Yeah. That’s right. 

Rockstar: See, Mum?

Me: She won’t have a choice.

Queen E: But. ….He’s my. Ko-ko.

Me: You have to respect the belt because all the kids who reach that stage would’ve put in the work and followed the instructions and learned lessons to pass the gradings for it.

Queen E: But… <trails off><Brightens> We are not in the same class right?

She’s great with Rockstar’s friends (including saying things like, “You’re older than me, you’re not supposed to do that,” if they so much as THINK of bullying her), but kinda stomps on her big bro’s pride (and heart) with her big Elsa light-up shoes.. For e.g.:

Queen E: Mummy, I want Ko-ko’s gwape juice. He’s not drinking it anyway.

Me: That’s up to Ko-Ko. How much d’you think he wants to share with you after you (swat him on the shoulder) so many times?

Queen E: I didn’t hit him that many times. <pause> Because I missed.

Rockstar: <Grunts, but doesn’t look up from laptop><doesn’t bother to respond about the unfinished juice either>

Me: You’re not even supposed to try to hit him at all.

Queen E: Ok I want grape juice. I promise I won’t hit him. <pause> For 5 minutes.

Rockstar: <BIG SNORT>

Ah well, we’ll see…

Cont’d from previous post’s Guess Where The Miss…

So..

Where in the world was Miss Wally?

A: Where Rockstar had a music exam. Though…  that’s not taken on the actual exam day, pictures not allowed then…

Rockstar took his first ABRSM (Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music) exam in grade 2 piano, recently. The exam venue was in a place with not a few tuition centres but we had actually never been here before exam season (so no, the Miss is not learning English at “Monkey Tree” tuition centre (or really, anywhere else other than at her ESF Kindy)

We don’t know the results of Rockstar’s exam yet, but were only hoping for a “pass” anyways <shrugs>. Just cos he’d been casually taking music* for awhile, we kinda figured may as well get a piece of paper along the way. Just because “playing the piano” can be anything from Child Protege (NOT… any child o’mine :D) to Circus Monkey and between.

Grade 2, not 1, only because the centre he’s enrolled in changed teachers twice and everyone somehow missed the closing dates to enrol him. (I finally enrolled him as a private candidate outside the school.)

*Rockstar’s not particularly musical; one reason I then planned on him doing some music when younger was because he was quite heavily “skewed” in one direction, in terms of interests. He generally didn’t like to sing, dance or paint (instead being comfy with say, numbers), he went almost the entire 2 years of kindergarten not exploring the sandpit (texture is another issue – some days even the non-slip flooring of swimming pools can bother him), we used to drop by kindergarten only to find him quietly walking up and down the mostly-empty stairwells during open play while the other kids would be noisily playing outside. Used to be, one bump from some passing kid on the playground would have him retreating into himself. (So… taekwondo tournament!)

Remember this? Like, if your kid has a problem with being bumped into, what do you do? Stick him in a fighting ring to get kicked about, of course! Parenting tip for the day. Dones. (Dusts off hands)

But back to music – it was at the back of my mind that Rockstar might miss growing a few erm, “music-related neurons” as he grew up.     

Anyway – two trial runs at the music exam centre because we don’t have a real piano at home yet. About 10 years ago before the kids were born we got this ~HKD 5,000 electric keyboard “piano” so as not to totally lose Grade 8 piano muscle memory (I too, scraped through by the skin of my teeth with the most lowly of “pass”es! Yippee!) and the kids have just been using that for years.

Well if you have nothing to play on then… maybe get the piano? Just that I got my own Grade 8 growing up on a third-hand piano propped under one corner with bits of wood because the mutt dogs in my (then Penang) home who perpetually tore about the place chasing cicaks (house lizard) and the occasional sewer rat dug off one old rusty wheel going after either a stray chew toy or cicak one day. As my Grade 8 drew near, the F key nearest the middle C no longer worked. But we were all “Yah, not taking any more exam after this, already came so far with this piano…”

(I am aware re pianos this is really not how many parents with musically inclined kids who are more serious about music education will think. This is my Have Faith, And Faith Will Be Given Ye Fake It ‘Til You Make It speech :P)

So, anyway. Didn’t care about the nice piano very much, not for a first exam, maybe if we are still doing it in a couple more grades then we’ll see… Do note however that I do have mum friends who rent really nice pianos on a monthly basis for first exams. We don’t do that because those pianos require heaters, dehumidifers, and preferably also a lack of shedding dog and active kids – remember Never Have Cheap Glass Near The Kids? At the end of the day renting piano might mean ending up “buying” a wrecked rented piano. Even worse.

Rockstar didn’t exactly want the extra pressure to keep at piano lessons either – which brings us to the bit I did care about: how Rockstar actually feels about piano/ music. He wouldn’t play his exam pieces for the prerequisite few minutes a day (as in, less than 10 mins) – but would dabble with keyboard fingering in a similar way to his fidgeting with the mountain of Lego in his room to build mutant freak creations – and then on the day of his lesson he would rush through the stuff he was supposed to do with the teacher.

(Oh, you thought I have a kid who loooves homework and practice? <snort> Non-competitive kids who don’t prize winning lack this otherwise powerful motivator – Rockstar has same-aged schoolmates who were at Grade 5 level last year, if I remember correctly. That’s uh, seven years old. Rockstar doesn’t have school music extra-curriculars (just regular school music) but we had a neighbour who had moved here not too long ago from the States whose daughter was, “Uh…. they’re. Good, Mum. Over here, they’re really, really good,” when her mum asked if she was trying out.)

It’s hard to rationalise regular practice with a non-competitive kid while they can still get away with super last minute work and Youtube the rest of their time away – so we have this particular “fight” every few weeks/months. The Can You Get Used To 10 Minutes Hard Work A Day Before You End Up A Homeless Bum Fight. Because we live in Exaggeration City. It’s on the border of But-Mum-My-Math-Homework-Turns-Out-Just-Fine-When-I-Dangle-Upside-Down-Off-The-End-Of-The-Sofa-With-My-Feet-Up-Against-The-Wall Land. It’s hard to balance between too difficult and too easy – on the one hand you don’t want them to just give up, but then I really don’t like it either, when kids get through something on very little effort because then they think they always only need very little effort.)

Then Rockstar had a music tutor who was on my back to get a “real” piano. After being nagged several times about the problem with keyboard touch, I went to the address she gave me and the cheapest piano in that store was around HKD 50,000. Most of ’em were more like HKD 80,000. For that kinda price you need caps and an uppity accent.

Issa Piah-No.

I was unconvinced about The Piah-No. But come exam time I listened, when she said “better let him try on the exam piano because it is a  real Piah-no.” Why yes, that deserves the accent too. “Real Piah-no” at the exam centre rents for HKD 280 per 30 minutes. And I almost didn’t get a slot because I sat on booking it weeks in advance. (Seriously. You have to book it several weeks in advance. I assume this is by the many mums in Hong Kong just like moi, who never buy Piah-No for their kids’ first exam.)

One look at Rockstar’s face when his 30 minutes are up, and I ask the bookings lady if there is anything left for him to have a second trial. (On the inside, I’m smugly thinking You See You See Never Practice Some More Lah. Now Scared Or Not? But by the time Rockstar reads this he would’ve sat for the exam ages ago so he can go on piano strike all he wants now.)

There is just one 30 minute slot left, late at the end of the day when everything else has closed, for the rest of exam season at this centre. I take it.

But I didn’t move this. Minecraft III Final Day Challenge (And oh look, he has now grown perm teeth way too big for his head.)

Rockstar exits the exam room.

Rockstar: I think I’ll pass. I was so, so lucky, the sight reading they gave me was easy.

Me: <starts – sight-reading is his weakest> Are you sure you didn’t miss something, did you check the key signature?

Rockstar: <nods firmly> Yes I got it, I saw. 

Me: Umm… <still unsure> I was reading some of the (past) transcripts on the board – there’s someone there with a strong merit – like, just a couple marks from distinction – and the examiner actually wrote that they got practically every single item in their aural test wrong. Still merit. You can fail something and still pass the whole thing anyways.

Rockstar: When are the results out? When are they when are they when are they – 

Me: You realise the only reason you’d want to know how you did is because you think you did well. Iimagine and remember how very different that would feel, if you weren’t prepared and thought you might fail. Be dreading every day until the inevitable, when we get the results.

And here’s more preachy stuff. (Be warned)

On piano exam day you can say to yourself:

A) “I don’t have The Piah-No. I’m doomed.” or

B) “‘Piah-No’ is awe-sum. If I could do all that stuff on the lesser piano, think how much better I’m gonna be, when I get to use da good stuff!”

Friend of mine training on NTU varsity taekwondo team used to walk the several hundred meters from hostel to lecture theatre and go about his day with weights strapped to his ankles.

When you are used to training (or really, doing anything) with weights on, one day when the weights come off, you discover you can fly. 

Your weights (sorry) in life are awesome that way. Have a good week ahead, dears…

“I believe I can flyyyyy….. I believe I can touch the skyyyyyy…..” pic of Michael Jordan in Spacejam from pikdit.com

Epilogue:

The day of his actual music exam was also his last day of Minecraft III camp. I was quite happy about this, because then he barely remembered he had the music exam (WE ONLY WANT A PASS. And to well, not end up in therapy) – he had to do a Redstone build of a “smart house,” and it was a total blessing he won the challenge by a wide margin, thereby earning that particular limited-edition Minecraft Sheers keychain that apparently you can only get from the school, which he is holding up in the pic above.

(I. know. Like, what music exam? Who cares about the lady who flies halfway round the world to hear you play and in 10 minutes passes swift and lasting judgment over whether you are any good. Ish.)

Also, it wasn’t a school day. Rockstar was in school uniform because during one of the trials they looked at his Nikes and said, “Remember not to let him wear those on exam day. He has to wear leather shoes, exams here are more formal so if he’s not going to dress up <Rockstar shakes his head vigorously> at the very least put on full school uniform.” So y-eah. He ended up winning Minecraft III Challenge in that too.

ps: Not planning to take ABRSM every year; otherwise this kid who isn’t exactly performance-driven in music will learn ONLY exam pieces <roll eyes>

pps: Almost every day since, Rockstar comes home and….. plays his (now past) exam pieces. Because he’s annoying.