I just realised that you can buy movie tickets for Cathay and Golden Village at a 5-8% discount! Ok ok… some of you may already know. Then why didn’t you tell me…. :(
As you can see, I seldom go to the movies. Anyway, I wanted to watch a movie and was googling on it to buy tickets. A klook link popped up and I just itchy hand clicked on it. Lo and behold! There’s a 5-8% discount on the movie tickets!! So, mai tu liao! I clicked on it to get a voucher code. Then applied the voucher code to the Cathay cinema ticket booking page before I checked out!
I checked klook and found that Golden Village offered that as well! Swee!!
Cathay’s movie ticket : No restriction on days. Can even be used on weekends which costs $14.50. Yay! They even have a popcorn voucher. Although, I prefer Garrett’s, mai hiam lah.
Everyday Movie Voucher – $11.50
Bundle of 3 Everyday Movie Vouchers (5% off) – $10.95 (each ticket)
Bundle of 5 Everyday Movie Vouchers (8% off) – $10.59 (each ticket)
Golden Village’s movie ticket : No restriction on days. But hor, GV more giam siap leh. Only 4% off. Hmm… But if you are like me, wait until it is the last few days of the movie screening AND only GV screens it, then bo bian… Have to watch at GV. So this voucher will be useful!
Everyday Movie E-voucher – $12.50
Bundle of 4 Everyday Movie E-vouchers (4% off) – $12.00 (each ticket)
ALERT! Take note that it is an ordinary movie and not a special ticket movie e.g. 3D, anime, special occasions. Cathay and Golden Village will specify at the movie page, but at the bottom and very small… So keep your eyes peeled to make sure that the movie you are watching is an ordinary 2D movie, or the vouchers can’t be used.
And so, it is now year 2023 and the school term has started. I am receiving messages from everyone asking me which GEP school had XXBB been posted to. Well, he is now… back in his old school. This entire GEP school picking journey felt like a roller coaster ride which ended back at the starting point.
We didn’t expect him to qualify for the GEP.
At the very beginning, we had never expected him to get through round 2 of the GEP exams. When we received the notification that he had been selected for the program, I had to admit that I was feeling really surprised and proud of him, for I have known parents who had sent their kids to GEP preparation courses just to get them selected for the program and he had zero preparation.
He didn’t want to leave his current school.
He was elated that he was selected but he was not keen to leave his school because he was perfectly happy there with his friends, favourite cca and having lots of time to pursue his sports interest.
M : Eh, since you don’t want to go GEP, then why did you go for round 2 and even did well in it.
XXBB : Because you said I needed to do my best for everything, right?? And after that I get more choices and I can decide what I want. I wanted to see if my brain could stretch enough for it. (Hmm… ok, he just regurgitated what I said to him ever so often. Must praise him arh??)
M : Why don’t you just try? The program is very interesting and you wanted to stretch your brain right???
Brainwashing began…
I was trying to “brainwash” him into going for GEP in the 2 days before I left for Korea. The hub continued by showing him the video and sharing how interesting the program was. Finally, he agreed to give it a shot. I was tasked to do homework on the GEP schools and present them to the bosses (what to do? I was at the bottom of the hierarchy. Even had to work on my holiday trip… zzz) So I messaged and spoke to friends and family members who had kids in the program (yes!! FROM KOREA!!!) and presented the pros and cons of the program and various schools to the bosses. (Pro right?!) They discussed and picked the schools together and submitted the form.
Change of mind.
One week before the school posting, he suddenly informed us that he wanted to stay in his current school. For the entire week, we tried to get him to change his mind even until the day the posting was announced. He stood his ground.
Was it really for him? Or for me?
It was such a pity to give up on the program which was so highly coveted for. I had to take a step back and ask myself, was it really for him or for me? I don’t deny that I was really proud that he made it to the program on his own and I would have wanted to go if I were the one to choose. But at the end of the day, I had to remind myself umpteen times that he wasn’t me and what we wanted was different. It took me quite a while to come round to the fact that he really didn’t want to go and i shouldn’t impose my will on him.
Rejection of the offer.
We wrote to the MOE to reject the offer and also to the school principal that he wanted to stay and hoped that his place hadn’t been given away. The principal assured us that he could stay and would be back in his current class.
Back to square one. Look on the bright side.
So, yes, he is staying in his current school. I try to look on the bright side that now I have more “me” time because I don’t need to do so much free Grab driving to ferry him across the island and I have even arranged car pooling with 2 other parents to take turns to ferry them to table tennis training. And XXBB announced that instead of using extra time to figure out the GEP stuff, he can now play table tennis every waking hour.
Oh, that is why I have time to blog now. Because today is not my car pool duty day!
YES!!! I did it!! Conquered the 4x4x4 cube!! Now to familiarise myself with the steps. 宝贝 beat me to it while I was busy with chores. Anyway, what matters is I DID IT!!! Sense of achievement!
To keep them out of mischief, tire them out with one leg stand competition! I can feel my brain cells withering bit by bit every day from coming up with new ideas.
He was left alone while daddy was working and I was going through 姐姐‘s papers.
Hmmm… it’s too quiet… I get worried when it gets too quiet. The last time he went all quiet, I saw water gushing out from the toilet door gap. He flooded his room toilet. 😑
I’d better go up and see what’s left of the living room.
Waaa!! Surprise!!
When gadgets, computers and TVs are removed from the equation, the kid automatically starts playing with the old forgotten toys and board games. It’s good to go gadget free. Looks like his addiction is waning, he’s stopped crying for the computer. 💪🏼
When I post serious things on my social media, nobody chaps me. When I post about bo Liao things (after scrolling through my posts, I realised that I’m quite bo Liao 😅), many people message me, some long lost friends.
Especially after my 小强post. This is how we rekindle friendships and bond over cockroaches. Thank you 小强!
Quite a few people messaged me after this…. This is one of them.
When I’m not busy preventing one kid from 拆房子, I’m marking past year science and maths papers of the other.
Tween refused to let me take photo of her doing homework. 😪 so can only post her ugly handwriting on exam paper.
It’s even worse if I lose the answer key. 😩 Then I’ve to do the whole exam paper from page to page!!! Macham taking PSLE several times. 😓 Such is my life. #sadlife
小小宝贝 (whispers back): Actually i don’t 算, I just anyhow put.
😅😅😅😅
I don’t understand the teacher 90% of the time. The whole 围棋 lesson is conducted fully in Chinese and they have a lot of weird jargons like 扭羊头 and what nots… Ok lah. He’s forced to go through the lessons in Chinese, so hopefully, it would help with his grasp of the language.
Hooligan Ming posture. Luckily his teacher couldn’t see him.
Today’a goal : getting him out of the house and working off excess energy.
7.30am (Only… Sigh…)
I did my 20 mins of swimming while they played catching or monkey or whatever in the pool. Then I was roped in to play Marco Polo, catching, piggy, one leg hop fight, monkey (a lot of animals here…practically the whole zoo).
We had the whole pool to ourselves until 9am when people started arriving to use it.
Ran home to avoid the crowd.
Only 9am. Shit… what else to do. 🤦🏻♀️
Short Swim… Huff and Puff!Check out my little ears!Cheeky-up-to-no-good smile
9.30am
The whole family took turns to keep him occupied in the morning.
Playing Chinese Chess with 姐姐
姐姐 played a few rounds of Chinese chess with him. It’s so hard to post pictures of the tween nowadays. She refuses to pose and when she does, she bans me from posting it on social media. Sigh.
Tween would only let me take her side view photo.
Very aggressive play… ate up many of 姐姐‘s pieces…
Aggressive play by XXBB
姐姐 needed to do her psle revision. Passed him over to Daddy. They played so many rounds that he got sick of the traditional one. “Eh! Your pieces are not set up properly!” “Haha! I just invented a new way of playing. We can set it up any way we want to counter the opposite player.” Ok…. #playuntilnothingtoplay 🤦🏻♀️
His own way of playing chessMaking funny faces
It’s not even lunchtime yet. This is going to be a looooong day!
Late afternoon… (his usual gaming/tv time)
Reality has finally set in! Now he’s 生不如死！Feeling very Cham and sorry for himself. #repentance
Feeling sorry for himself
He’s happy again. No computer gaming + no tv = play board game. He’s generally a very happy kid. Figuring that there’s no way around his punishment, he decided that he might as well keep himself happy playing games. He’s occupied until dinner time…
Happily playing board games
I predict that we will go through all the drama again tomorrow. Meanwhile, happy board gaming!
The destructive force swept through my house like a hurricane. Within 1 week of HBL, he’s broke :
the Angel of Hope I carefully brought back from the States. He was hitting his table tennis balls in the house and it knocked it off the display shelf and beheaded it. I was hopping mad. He tearfully emptied his entire piggy bank of $35 and borrowed $22 from Daddy (to be paid back in instalments of $2 per week) to buy one off EBay.
all these table tennis balls. I’ve absolutely no idea how he managed to crack them up like this. That’s why he’s named the destructive force.
a Gaudi display mug that’s twice his age. I was bathing when he did it so I’d absolutely no idea what he did. When I came down, he was 罚站 in a corner in the living room. Unable to find it online for him to buy it and go into further debt. Do not be mistaken that he’s crying out of remorse. He’s agonised because he’s had his computer game and tv rights removed for 1 month.
The Beheaded Angel of HopePulverised Table Tennis BallsFeeling sorry for himself because of the ban. Picking up the shattered pieces of my beautiful Gaudi cup. T.T
At the rate he’s going, I won’t have a house left by the end of HBL. 😩
