I Cannot Survive!

The above three words were repeatedly uttered by my six-year-old as he clutched his head with both hands as a terrible headache ripped through his head. These three words and others with similar effects such as "How can I live like this?" and "Is the pain ever going to go away?".

Well, I must say Joshua is a bit of a drama king. And since he has a rather low threshold on pain, he tends to whine excessively when he's in pain. What's a 5 on a scale of 10 for most people is probably a 9 to him. So when he developed a bad headache a couple of days ago, he sounded as if he needed to be rushed to the hospital.

Which was exactly what his grandfather thought. You see, on Tuesday, just five minutes before the last school bell went off, he started screaming in pain in his classroom. I wasn't aware of that though I was already at his school with his grandparents (who are here for a long visit) and his sister Joanne. I saw his teacher Miss McDonald coming out from the classroom quite frantically but didn't know she was looking for me. She didn't see me and went back into the class.

I only realised Joshua's predicament when Rosemary - Joshua's best friend Alexander's mum - saw me and quickly told me about the situation. Naturally, I rushed to his classroom and found him being comforted by both Miss McDonalds and Mrs Powells, the teacher from the next class. He was crying incessantly, worrying both the teachers.

I know my son. It was probably not as bad as he appeared to be. So I did my best to comfort him and carried him back to the car. At that point, I knew there would be some problems with the grandparents. Joshua is their favourite grandchild and one of them would insist on my doing something extra.

Back in my mind, I knew some Panadol, lots of water and a good rest would do the trick. But no, grandpa kept saying we had to send Joshua to the clinic. I didn't oblige. It was 4pm and you could only get to see a doctor by appointment. By then, I doubt there was any slot left for me for the day as the clinic closed at 5pm. The clinic would, at best, arrange an appointment the next morning. The other option is the Emergency Department of the Box Hill Hospital, an option I found totally ridiculous because you would have to wait for at least 3 hours before any doctor could see you.

So I ignored the old man and drove straight home. Of course, Joshua kept wailing and screaming as if he was on the brink of death. I knew someone wasn't happy with me but I called the shots here. Thankfully, my mother-in-law was here 2 weeks earlier and she'd seen how appointments needed to be made at clinics and how whiny Joshua was when he was down with gastroenteritis. So she backed me up although she was very concerned as well.

Finally we got home (the journey was less than 10 minutes thouth it felt like like 1 hour with all the screaming at the back seat). I got Joshua to swallow a spoonful of Panadol and lots of water. Then I gave him a head rub with some minyak angin. He fell asleep in less than 10 minutes. And he was out for almost 2 hours after that.

By 6.30pm, he woke up and was okay. Good as new. Boy I was glad I didn't kow-tow to some stupid demand. Rushing a kid to a hospital because of a headache? That would be really too much ...

Teachers On Strike

Today, thousands of Victorian public school teachers didn't turn up for work. Instead, they staged a big protest demanding higher pay, better working conditions and smaller class sizes. Yep, the teachers had gone on a strike.

It's totally unheard of in Malaysia. Malaysian teachers generally get paid peanuts (and some deserving teachers never get the promotion or increment that should be theirs though some other lazy ones get triple promotions simply because they have the right skin colour), work throughout school holidays and handle classes with more than 45 kids each.

Big difference? You bet. But nothing is ever good enough for the Aussies. Nurses, airline employees, factory workers and even police officers stage what they term as "Stop Work Action" activities from time to time. I suppose to them the action is justifiable. I haven't been here long enough to pass any good judgement but I guess as they have their reasons. And if it's for the good of all eventually, why not? Very often, whenever the demands by certain unions are met, they perform a lot better. So it's cool.

That said, these strikes are also very disruptive. Some parents were understandbly upset because they were given too short a notice. Many working parents even had to bring their kids to work today because they couldn't find anyone to take care of their kids.

Joshua's class was not affected. So he went to school as usual. But more than half the school's kids were not there today because their teachers had refused to show up. And these "defiant" teachers have vowed to continue "industrial actions" until their demands are met. Which means we can expect more strikes in the near future.

A day or two of strikes are okay. I just hope they don't go on strike for 2 weeks every day consecutively. That would be disastrous!

Invasion Of The Flies

Gosh, I detest flies! And there are so many of them around these days. For the uninitiated, flies abound here during prolonged hot seasons. And since it's almost summer and the temperature has been soaring way past 30 degrees of late, flies thrive, making a nuisance of themselves.

They are real pests with a penchant of making pit stops at various points of your face, notably the eyes, nose and mouth. Disgusting! Sometimes I feel like a corpse with those tiny buggers hovering and buzzing around me.

Back in Malaysia, we always joke that if flies buzz around you, that means you stink, literally. Well, you don't have to stink here to attract flies during summer. Apparently, the flies attach themselves to humans and other animals because they are drawn to the moisture in the eye, nose and mouth. No wonder they don't follow the food crumbs I toss about to stop them from harrassing me!

And guess what? There are 10,000 to 30,000 types of flies in Australia during summer. 30,000! What a staggering number of pests. And some of them feast on blood too. Gross! And how do you tell them apart? Apparently, according to one fly expert, they have "different lifestyles". Duh? Flies have lifestyles?? Don't they just breed and cause trouble wherever they go? I can't imagine flies having different lifestyles. It's just too odd.

In the meantime, I'm going to invest in some fly swats. No creature a million times smaller than I is going to bug me without my hitting back.

28 Weeks Later

Okay, first thing first. This movie - 28 Weeks Later - was not my idea at all. Alex rented it, so I watched it with him while I was doing some ironing. Multitasking is my speciality after all. But gosh, what a horrid and stupid movie it was.

Never had my intelligence been repeatedly insulted so much during the course of a movie. And this one was flawed through and through. The thing is, it actually did fairly well in the box office. I wonder why. Are moviegoers so gullible they'll just gobble up whatever that's offered to them?

I remember avoiding watching it because I read a review in which the reviewer stated "Don't worry. Everyone in this movie was so stupid they all deserved to die!" And he was right, 100%.

Here are some examples of the movie's stupidity.

1. Why would people return to a country devasted by a deadly virus so soon even though it was declared safe? Shouldn't they wait at least 10 years instead of 28 weeks?

2. How could two kids slip out of a restricted zone so easily? The zone was closely guarded by highly trained soldiers.

3. The kids' escape was noted but the authorities took hours to locate them (after they happily cruised around London before going back to their old home). How could that be?

4. How could their mother survive so long and how on earth did she find her way home after being bitten by one of those infected by the rage virus?

5. How could their father have such an easy access to their mother's restricted chamber (after she was completely decontaminated and disinfected and restrained) even though he was a caretaker of the building? Where were the guards? Where were the surveilance cameras? Don't they have these sorts of things when they keep people with crucial information or special abilities (The doctor taking care of her believed that she was a carrier of the rage virus who might be able to help produce a vaccine for the disease)?

6. Why did the kids' father have to kiss his wife knowing that she was definitely infected with the rage virus? That was the stupidest thing anyone could've done! The virus spreads through saliva and blood. So bingo! After the kiss, he turned into one of those rage monsters and started a killing spree.

7. Why wasn't the chamber occupied by the survivor/wife/mother monitored at all?? Surely after the man turned violent and started banging things and killing his wife, something would've triggered something to alert the authorities. But no, they had to wait until he got out and started spreading the rage virus that they took action - of course, it was too late by then.

I stopped watching by then, because I had finished my ironing chores. I just knew that the two stupid kids who started the whole thing actually survived the ordeal. They ought to be shot.

Anyway, it's just a stupid movie. Glad I got some chores done while "watching" it. I heard there may be a sequel called 28 Months Later. You can count on me not watching it.

Where West Meets East

Oops, I did it again! Once more, I failed to dress Joshua up for a particular special day - this time the last day of the "Where West Meets East Art Festival". You see, Joshua's school had devoted the entire week to this festival, holding exhibitions and a host of activites based on the West Meets East theme. And today, the kids and teachers were supposed to dress up in Asian costumes for a little street parade.

I knew about the festival and the street parade but somehow the part about asking parents to dress up their kids ala Asian style escaped me. I read everything attentioned to parents but somehow missed that part. I only found out about it yesterday.

Too late. I didn't bring Joshua's old Chinese New Year costume to Melbourne. So he went to school in his uniform. No big deal. He wasn't too concerned. Still, I had a suspicion he was going to stick up like a sorethumb in the midst of colourful Asian attire.

True enough, we saw all the little Gwai Lohs and Gwai Muis dressed like little Chinamen and China dolls here and there. There were those in kimonos and saris as well. Boy, these Aussies really take this sort of thing seriously. Only a handful of the kids came in their uniform. And the weirdest thing was, half of those "unadorned" kids were Asian!

Ha ha. Such irony. Joshua wasn't that alone after all! I guess we Asians have seen all this cultural thing and are just not that fascinated with it. Which begs the question - are we losing our touch as Asians?

Probably. Which is quite sad, actually. As is it, both Joshua and Joanne are showing signs of becoming real banana people. They speak Mandarin and Hakka (when they do decide to speak at al and this is becoming rare these days) with a funny accent.

I guess I'd better send them to Mandarin classes next year before they completely lose touch with their mother tongue and origin.

I'll Be Darned!

"Who farted??! It's so smelly!"

"Oh no! Not an old bus again!"

"Hey, that's the same bus driver we had yesterday!"

"That woman with a fat tummy isn't really fat because she is having a baby!"

"That car is so ugly and old!"

I have to endure listening to my 2 kids babbling loudly like this between themselves while riding on the bus. Kids being kids, and we all know how downright painfully honest they can be sometimes, they just blurt out whatever that's on their mind without thinking.

Of course, I do my best to hush them, telling them to keep their voices down while talking in public. Naturally, they don't get it most of the time. They just make any passing comments whenver they stumble on something that deserves some kind of mention, usually the more unflattering kind.

One of my biggest fears is to hear them commenting loudly about somebody's disabilities. Disabaled people in Australia are very independent and frequently move about and board public transport on their own. Many of them have cerebal palsy or severe obesity and therefore physically look unusual.

I'm so worried the kids would say someone looking ugly or stupid. But thankfully, they haven't embarrassed me like that, yet. Maybe they instinctively know it's not right to comment about others' misfortune and disabilities. If so, maybe the kids aren't so clueless about life after all.

Until we have the car back, I'll have to hope Joshua and Joanne will lower their voices when making commentaries on the bus, and pray they NEVER, EVER say someone is ugly because of one reason or another. I don't fancy getting killer stares from strangers!