Jennifer F. Netto's Blog, page 5

Your Light Will Burn Within Me

Eleven years have passed from your passing away,
but it feels like it was just yesterday,
you spoke to me the night before you left,
and shared what you wished for me to last.

I don't know what your life in that realm is like,
but I bet you are in much delight,
to be closer to the God you love,
and the man you honoured throughout your life.

I miss you so much, that much I know,
this life without you, feels shallow and cold,
but the strength I saw in your life helps me keep my spirits high,
to know that no matter what, God will always be by my side.

I wished you had the chance to hold my kids,
to pamper and shower them with your love and bliss,
but I take consolation that though you are not with them,
they know you, love you and I see you in them.

Rest in peace my dearest mummy,
rest in the grace our God gives us,
for the land you walk on now is where I am destined to be,
trusting I will someday meet you in eternity.

Till that day comes, take comfort that you have thought me right,
That you have showed me the importance of love and like.
You gave me memories to share and keep,
and your light will live strong forever within me.

I love you...

Life Is Responding To You

I believe the words in the picture above just says it all. Life is not happening to you. it's responding to you.Study its responses and embrace it for acceptance of a job well done or a sign for personal change.How you act to it is how it will react to you.
Reminds me of those times I've heard people say, they don't know why others hurt them so much. In a similar way, this is the answer.How others treat you is usually their reaction to what you act on them.

All it takes is ONE

Today was a remarkable day for me, my Belle and her 30 classmates and here is why.During the last school break, I decided to throughly look through Belle's activity books and before I could go through her English book, she brought a complain to me. Apparently her English teacher had them do 3 pages from the activity book which required them to listen to an audio/reading from the teacher's part before attempting to answer the questions.

Obviously this was the section for 'listening skill'. The teacher was apparently too busy with the preparation of English week and she asked them to do these 3 pages themselves despite knowing, correct answers can only be obtained upon them listening to something, despite Belle asking her, "But this is a listening activity!"
So i decided to do what I always did back when Belle was in Sri Sedaya, write a note on the top of the page and ask Belle to go and show it to the teacher.

While Sedaya, it was usually addressed to her BM teacher for some further explanation on 'frasa' and to her Math teacher over why the laziness of not using exercise books to attempt the math questions instead of scribbling at the side of the text book pages, this was to a GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TEACHER.

Common perception is that, it's easier to question people you pay to do the job, than it is to question government staff. Even Belle herself said, she thinks she's going to get into trouble for asking. I only encouraged her not to fear questioning what requires questioning and at the same time told her to do so when she found the courage for it.
Belle walked up to the teacher today, gave her book opened at the page, and told her teacher, "My mother has a note for you." 
When the teacher saw what I had written, she immediately started defending herself and told my daughter, "I never asked you to do these pages, why did you?" but Belle rebutted and said that she did. A classmate of hers heard them and walked up to the teacher's table to see and told the teacher, "Yes you asked us to do it." As if 2 student's admission wasn't enough, the teacher asked the class. Half of them said NO while the other half said YES. Then she decided to tell Belle, "You didn't get to do the listening part because you were absent," and Belle replied, "I wasn't absent, Teacher. I asked you about the listening part that day also." After that 3 other students confirmed that the teacher did ask them to do it, did not do the listening part and that Belle did ask her about it that very same day to which the teacher's reply back then was, "Just answer what you can," and she left the class.
Finally the other half of the class who said NO, checked their books and said YES as well. 
Right after that, she decided to conduct the listening section for those pages and the children in the class had to erase all their previous answers because everything was obviously answered wrongly.
How terrible! Just to defend herself she rather accuse Belle of being absent and for doing something not asked, without even being sure of what she did and did not do?
It's sad when the ministry puts listening skills into the teaching of English, and the teacher does this on top of the limited hours they have for this language. I don't think she expected to get a NOTE from a parent written on the activity book or to even think that someone was checking their children's work and of all language ENGLISH. (By the way, the book is not even marked once, and the 2nd term has already started.)

If she was very busy, the least she could have done, was to hand out grammar or vocabulary worksheets to them instead of making them do something that required a listening aid. It's called planning, plus if she really forgot she made the mistake, she didn't have to play the blame game with a 9 year old. Adults I tell you!

I congratulated Belle for her courage and she asked me why? My reply : "Well the fact that you told me, and I wrote the note, and you went to ask, which brought attention to your other classmates who backed you up when the teacher claimed it to be your fault and finally having the lesson done right which benefitted your entire class, is worth congratulating!"

Her 2nd question however was, "If the teacher didn't do the listening part today? What then Ma?"
My reply : "This Saturday is report card day, she'll have to answer directly to me!"
Lesson learnt : Listen to what your children tell you and proactively involve yourself where, when and however you can. All I did was to put my stamp of parental authority on that book (it worked in Sedaya and now I know it works in government schools too) and it bore fruits for the entire class (exactly what I wanted as I was more concern over what her classmates were missing out because Belle is going through a good English program at home with me). This should work as a lesson to the teacher that she's being watched and I don't think she would try this sort of stunt again, at least not in the class with Belle in it. 1 person is all it takes to drive a change, and in this case it was Belle! Well done. This is a case in a Standard 3 classroom. I would like to believe, if every parent worked as an auditor to their children's work, we can catch the mistakes our kids make and guide them as well as the mistakes the teachers make and nip the bud! We are after all their first teachers, who better to do the job? Teachers are just humans too, and they sometimes need to be pushed back into the right track.

My Child is Better Than The System!

This is another case of EGOISTIC Parenting! Almost fits to be a continuation of my previous post.
Parents who think their child is above a certain standard and refuses to accept otherwise.
Many educated parents think that because they are educated and some what a brainiac, they believe their offsprings are SUPERHEROES! Well probably The Incredibles can fit that stereotype, but come on, a system is created to evaluate a child. Of course not all child is built to be within a classification.

A friend of mind who teaches English at a language centre always shares her experiences with me, about parents who walk into her centre and expect their child to be placed into a certain high grade without even considering the evaluation results of their child.

"No no, cannot be! She's very good in her English one! She must not be put in the beginner's class. She is advance one!"  (Another denial!)

REALLY? Apparently her scores were below average on the test. But I guess, money rules these sort of parents? So the child was made to enter the higher grade class (unfortunately) and she struggled!
She struggled and her parents didn't do anything about it and subsequently the teachers were blamed for not doing a good job! So why don't the centre not accept the student if the parent fail to accept the evaluation test? Afraid these parents will talk bad about their centre and spoil the business market for them? (If it were my centre, I would not allow them to dictate me. Rather I would say, let start her off with the grade she's evaluated at, and we will see if she progresses better once she's comfortable. It should be a step by step evaluation if you asked me, but its not my centre so let's go back to the parent.)

Who are these parents rushing with?
Who are they competing with?
Is it a way to save their buck or are they that oblivious to what their child truly is?

It's like those movies where narcissistic mothers force their girls into ballet and the child suffers for not being able to do it, and all that forcing eventually creates a psychologically disturbed child who grew up thinking she's not good enough when actually her mother was the jack ass!

Then again there's another adverse effect that could happen, kids such as these will grow up always blaming the system and others when in fact the mistake is solely theirs.

Give your kids a break la!

Take them to the field and run!
Watch TV with them, read with them, dance with them and let them go through the system and observe them! Your child is not you or her brainiac father! She or he is uniquely themselves, learn to accept that.

Don't upset their internal system. Crash the program inside them and all you will get is an adult with low self esteem and low confidence and he or she will produce those kind of offsprings too because they don't know any better.

Evaluation is the key to knowing what is best for your child and to evaluate your child, you need to be actively involved in their growing and learning and not assume that they are better but take them for what they are. NEVER use your personal achievements and success as their yard stick!

Destruction via Denial

I believe the worst attitude to have in a person is DENIAL. Can you imagine how destructive it can be to you if you are constantly pointed to what needs rectifying and you deny and carry on as if it didn't matter? It's bad for your own self, those around you and at many instances it can even crash down a system or a country if leaders lived in denial.

Bottom line, denial is a destructive attitude to own.
 It's important to know when you need to recheck your actions and work on the constructive criticisms that heads your way by putting aside EGO. It's true, it's our life, and we are the boss of it, but there are many people around us, who genuinely care for us and when something that needs repairing is told to us, we ought to ponder on it and evaluate and see if a remedial action is required rather than to dismiss it entirely and go into denial. We owe ourselves that much at least before the damage is irreversible. Don't you think?


Well the reason I've decided to write about this is because of a forum discussion that took place yesterday in a Facebook group. As much as parents feel that teachers in Malaysia, besides the Education system of course needs to be evaluated and revamped, parents too need a little self-evaluation.

No not all teachers are rotten. No not all parents are oblivious, but when a teacher tells a parent that their child needs help, it's important not to DENY it! Set your EGO aside and evaluate his/her comment and then see what should be done. I was told that when a standard 1 teacher told a mother about her child's inability to read and comprehend, she refused to accept the criticism. It resulted in the child not being able to perform even after a year. This remarks were made during the mid term report book day. Half a year's evaluation was given to the parent, and the parent dismissed it and refuse to accept the teacher's comment. Weren't the results proof enough to know her child needs help?

Parents need to know, that all kids are built differently. Not every system works for every child and we can't expect the school teacher to be working miracles on the odd ones out (no offence). That is when a parent's guidance is required. At a tender age, when we get the comment that our child needs extra attention and assistance, we can't expect and demand the teachers alone to be doing that for us, can we? We need to look into providing assistance for our kid through ourself or by getting a private tutor to work 1 to 1 with our child. It may sound like a lot to do, but consider how big a mountain it would be for expecting only the school teachers to do the job for us?

 In the long run, are we going to keep blaming the school and system?
 Time waits for no man. We can do our bit in suggesting for a change in system, but our child is not going to stop growing till the change happens. We parents all have a responsibility over our own child? We are after all the first teachers and will remain the only teacher in his or her life that should be guiding them and nurturing them, not drop the ball on school teachers and a education system alone.

This is just one case, but many I know carry denial over their kids. Kids who require extra help, kids who require extra disciplining, kids who require attention and all this by right should be handled by parents not teachers.

There are parents who have very difficult children, and instead of working on grooming them right, expect others to tolerate and some even cuts the friendship off because they feel they do not need to discipline their kids. Please bare in mind that I'm not referring to parents with special children when I say this. I have friends with special kids who in fact behave better than the normal ones no thanks to their parents who live in denial.

To me, when we live in denial, we destroy the possibility of living life right.

If the denial involves just you, then by all mean carry on, but if your denial is going to make another be at risk, then serious considering should be done.

On the same note, when parents complain about the lack of efficiency in a teacher, the teacher too should not be in denial, you are an educator and you too need to be able to set your ego aside and work on constructive criticism because you owe it to your profession and the children you took a vow to educate into educated and decent citizens by putting aside your ego and personal agendas.

Bottom line, don't live in denial only because you are too stubborn to accept criticism for someone is going to end up paying for it, someone always does!

Orchestra Of Coughs

Source: You Tube
My kids are unwell and I feel so helpless seeing them in this state. The fever was the most worrisome but now this cough that just doesn't seem to get off of them. They are tired of taking their medicines. I don't blame them, but they have no choice. Right now I'm in the midst of an Orchestra. Every one of them is taking turns to play their coughing pipes and I occasionally hit the bass for them with my own cough. Oh please get well soon.

Kids and Babies R Us

It really has been a long time since I visited Toys R Us.

The last was back when the outlet at Mid Valley was under renovation, if I'm not mistaken I think that was last December.

I must say the place looks much brighter now although there is nothing much to shout about when it comes to the collection of Toys in there.

However, I did come across a good collection of clothes in the 'Kids R Us' section and stumbled upon Heidi Klum's 'tRULY scrumptious' 'Babies R Us' items too. Since AJ's birthday is in a week's time, I decided to grab a few pieces of birthday outfits for him before leaving for our movie.


The price isn't too bad either. I got a two piece toddler suite for RM62 and single t-shirts for less than RM30 with an additional discount thanks to my STAR CARD. What I liked about it - they are a 100% cotton and the designs were funky and unique. I may sound bad when I say this, but I like to see my kids in clothes I don't see a 100 other kids in (I try at least), but I'm not a BRANDED-MANIA mummy either. I did not go for Heidi's collection because I found them overpriced. I certainly don't need to pay her royalty to dress my kids up, but I did coincidentally get one item of hers which I only realised now it's hers; the Girl's Stripe Sun Hat which was on a 50% promotion. I fell in love immediately with this hat and just had to get it for Belle because it reminded me of a hat I had when I was 5.


Besides getting AJ his drum set which he's banging away right now and the Medieval Sword CJ has been asking me for because AJ took full ownership of his old one, I'm glad I got to buy off AJ's birthday clothes and I would recommend 'Kids R Us' to mummies who are looking for some pretty neat stuff for kids up to age 5 especially mum's who are bored of JUSCO clothes.

Iron Man 3

I finally made my way to watching Iron Man 3, 24 days after it premiered in Malaysia.

It's not easy making time to get to the cinemas with 3 kids not because of the kids, but finding the best timing in order to get a parking at the mall. Since it's the school holidays, yesterday was our treat to some super hero action for my kids and my treat to watching Robert Downey Jr.
(Honestly, if he acted like an ass, I would still love it, because it's him.. haha)

The movie itself was good. The plot was certainly interesting.

But if you know me, I review not about the architecture of the movie but the intrinsic values one can get out of spending hours in front of a screen.

I like how Stark started it by narrating that we make our own demons and takes us back to 1999.
To me this movie showed how Stark finally got his sky rocketing "ego" (which we know all successful men have) down to earth. He displayed his weakness, his fears, his emotions of love, his regrets and the fact that a man especially if he has achieved greatly, cannot just sit around doing nothing.
Stark was finally "NORMAL" but nevertheless the brainiac superhero - The Mechanic.


It's interesting how the ordinary characters played a significant role in his Stark's performance this time, such as Harley Keener, who comes to his aid and to me that showed a real life picture of how sometimes, a child's innocence can bring the best out of an adult, their unclouded mind helps put perspective in a grown up's brain.

The hidden humour of course was brilliant, and as always you don't get many laughing to them in the cinema, I guess that's why I say it's brilliant.

Oh and seeing Ben Kingsley - I tell you that man can sure take on a role. He's simply amazing. Who would have thought, after seeing his video threats, that the actual him was a complete scam? Ben Kingsley really is a multi faceted actor.

Well, overall, watching Iron Man was hot, 3000 degrees hot? May be! The movie was more than just superhero action to me, fiction it may be but it carried a lot of message about men, the dangers of being a power crazy and egocentric man, as well as the beauty of loyalty to a woman - picking up a hobby that involves building machines and not tripping over other ladies. However, superficially, what it was most of all was a wonderful treat to the eyes!

The Apprentice Asia

The long anticipated show finally aired on AXN and watching Tony was both exciting and disturbing.

Exciting because IT'S TONY!
Disturbing because he is not DONALD TRUMP!

I got the chance to listen to Tony on Red FM yesterday afternoon and hearing him say that he rejected being part of Apprentice Asia for 2 years for the same disturbing reason, totally made sense.

Donald Trump is a business tycoon of his own definition and making Tony play the role of Donald just didn't seem right because they both are uniquely successful businessman, and it's not appropriate for Tony to act like Donald at all. Yes, Tony was asked to make this show as his, but it's The Apprentice! It's a synonym to DONALD TRUMP.

Anyway the show is made and yesterday's premier we distinctly saw the camera man focusing on Tony's firing finger. I must say the Apprentice that got fired looked as if he willingly led himself to the slaughter house!

What was Hendy Setiono even thinking? He kept beating around the bush whenever he was asked a question and the smirk on his face, my goodness, I was seriously expecting Tony to tell him to wipe that off!

Yesterday's premier clearly showed the vast and distinct difference between a street smart and a book smart person. They all, to me, fall in the latter! Are these contestant really the best of the best in Asia?
They certainly didn't seem so, and come on, if you can't sell fish, you better go back to business school and figure that out!

I could give a critical comment about each one of them, but I'm not going to waste my time doing that or waste my time watching this show again and I don't know why Tony wasted his. Why can't Asia come up with their own stuff?

REJECTED English?

I was at Seremban Parade last Sunday and as I took the escalator down from the parking lot, I was surprised to see that 'Reject Shop' was closed at 11.30am and I made my way to reading why, only to choke on what I had read.

Ironic isn't it - Reject Shop gives us REJECT English! 
This is just one of the many I have encountered and I'm sure many of you have seen worst. I wonder if our Ministry of Education and Education Policy Makers know the mess they are brewing in their future generation's education because they sure as hell screwed many already. Oh! Should I beware for speaking so? I almost forgot - if I'm not happy with the current situation in this country of mine, I have to migrate, kan? 
Trust me, those who have migrated and soon to migrate are not at stake here. Malaysians are being taken for a good ride and made into an international joke. When your working group cannot communicate well in your official second language, it calls for a serious remedial action. It is THE indication that our system is not effective and might not even be close to good as what is almost always told to the RAKYAT that we have a standard that's above average or excellent. Whenever I read such ludicrous statements, I wonder whom they are comparing us to? Are they dreaming?

The older generation in Malaysia, had various other struggles to meet but I would like to believe that they were blessed to have a primary and some even secondary education that were above par, almost can be considered excellent because you can still see how many of them have a strong command of almost three to four languages. The reason I say this is because of my current visits to the local market here in Lukut, ever since I shifted to this state. I see old chinese men speak fluently in English, BM and in fact code switch to Tamil and they sound just like Indians speaking if you didn't get to see their faces. Likewise I have seen Indians speaking like they were native Chinese speakers and also having a good power over English. You don't see this much these days and almost never in the younger generation unless they've studied in a vernacular school but they will be far from being able to communicate well in English. I never saw much of this in PJ either, because everyone working in the market and restaurants are foreign workers who by the way have very good command in BM. 
I walked into a Chinese Medicine shop in Seremban several weeks ago, and I asked for eye drops in Malay, but the owner of the shop replied in fluent English and he got me smiling. No, I smiled not because my mother tongue is English, but because he's as old as my dad and his shop looks like it never travelled through time since the Communist invasion. Yet there in front of me, stood a man who decided to reply to me in such grammatically correct English - something you don't even hear from the mouth of school teachers these days and some of them are English teachers (at that point I always wonder who I should slap for this!). 
What's the point of free education if the quality is going to be like having lice in your head? It is because it's FREE that it's like that? Should every concern parent now think about enrolling their children into International Schools, Private Schools and language centres where parents have to pay a bomb and the government reaps from the taxes? Or is "GO MIGRATE" going to be the answer our Education Ministry throws at us too, sooner or later as their solution to the problem they have created?

Quality has to be a priority at the most basic level - the foundation - primary school and a constant effort  to increase its use in schools through subjects other than just English is a good way to have it utilised more. Making English a subject that requires a compulsory pass is not the solution to improving the standards of English, we all know how the grades are manipulated anyway. The number of passes is not the end result. The picture above is the end result!
No use having a Malaysian kid study English for 11 years in school and upon leaving school, that student writes without knowing where to put an apostrophe or when to use plural or singular! Having so many subjects just for English at tertiary level too is not the solution to this problem. Our education system has and is providing such horrid roots for the RAKYAT that even in 11 years students come out writing and speaking English like this and they think making 10 out of 60 subject in order to graduate with a Degree be in English is going to clean the mess? What happens to those Malaysians who don't even see the chairs of a University lecture hall? Not every Malaysian is not able to walk into the tertiary environment, due to their grades at secondary level (thanks to we know who) and most times their race and income status forbids them from getting a place in the universities, so they go out straight to work and the picture up there is the result you get from all this. Simple English made to sound so baboonish and sadly even some C.E.Os of corporations stink at it too.  Have you seen the Malaysian contestants in our locally produced reality shows like Master Chef and The Apprentice? Oh, I don't intend to start on that. 
I'm pretty sure if I had to ask that old man from the Chinese Medicine shop to write an informative memo to his customers, what you see above would not be the result you'd get!
Malaysia needs help and that help better come soon because my deepest concerns are for those who have no resources to making it on their own and are being screwed over further by our sad system. Our education may be FREE but the actual price the RAKYAT pays is this - 'REJECTED English'!