Kay's preschool and birthday lunch with Claire
man, this week has been such a whirlwind of one thing after another with a lot of bus and metro time stuck in between. :P
well on Monday, we couldn't go to the playgroup meeting, so we spent the whole day indoors so Kay could get better from whatever she caught at her first day at kindie. i dunno if it was my prayers or the meds or whatnot, but whatever happened, she pretty much recovered from her labored breathing on Sunday. by the afternoon, she was down to just a small little cough, and hyper as heck since she'd been pent up for almost 72 hours ^_^;; so we decided that she'd be well enough to go to class on Tuesday :)
Tuesday, i woke up at 6:00 AM as planned and did my routine of shower, make breakfast, and get Kay ready. we left at around 7:30 and did the whole bus, then metro, then bus commute and arrived at her preschool an hour later. she has a 7-eleven that's about a minute's walk from her school, so i decided that we would be able to have our breakfast there for 30 min before i sent her off at 9:00 and headed to teach my classes.
for those who are wondering why we'd go to a 7-eleven to eat food that we'd brought ourselves, it's because about a while ago 7-eleven started City Cafe where you can get freshly ground coffee at your regular 7-eleven for a fairly good price. it was a big hit and so they started putting tables and seats where you could actually sit down and enjoy your coffee, food or whatnot in the actual 7-eleven. :) i was thrilled when they started doing this for almost all of their stores and then other convenient stores caught on and converted their stores into mini cafes. so, you can also sit down at a Hi-Life or Family Mart. :) they're not that big on checking to see if you're eating/drinking something that you've bought from their store, so you'll see a lot of people just using the seats and tables for themselves while having a nice cool/warm place to sit. i usually buy at least a snack or a drink before taking a seat (usually Kay gets a chocolate milk in the morning with her breakfast), because i hate it when i see someone taking up a seat (they're usually around 4-5 seats per store) eating their homemade bento and clearly didn't purchase something from the store while i have to wait on the side. :/
after i drop her off at 9:00, i have to commute back to the metro and go to wherever i have a class that day which usually takes about 30-40 min. that gives me a little bit of time before 10:30 to prep and get my mind in order before i start teaching. i thought i'd feel weird teaching without having Kay there, but i actually felt relieved, because i was more focused on the kids instead of having to keep Kay from becoming a noisy distraction, which she was at times ^_^;;
my classes mostly end before noon, so i'd get to be able to run errands or go back home and drop my stuff off and work on lesson plans and chores. with the commute home from classes also ranging from 30-40 minutes with an extra 30 min for some lunch, i usually get about 2 hours which isn't much to get stuff done and has to be used very efficiently. since her preschool is approximately an hour away (15 min bus, 15 min metro, 30 bus all including waiting time), i have to leave at 3:00 in order to be able to pick her up between 4:00-4:30. if i'm early, i just hang out at the 7-eleven mentioned above and wait until i see other moms come which is around 4:15-ish. we end up leaving the preschool around 4:30 where i give Kay a little snack at the bus stop. the buses are bit slower around then because of people starting to get off of work/school, so it takes about 10-15 min before we get on a bus to the metro and then wait another 10-15 min for another bus to take us home. ^_^; the moms in my playgroup all look at me weird when i tell them about my commute, but it's either the preschool that she's going to or other Japanese preschools waaaaaaaaaay out there in Tien Mu which would take about an hour and a half... ~_~; the funny thing is that the preschool isn't that far away from where we live (30 min by taxi). it's just the bus-metro-bus thing that takes time.
by the time we get home, it's almost 6:00 where i have to get dinner ready and go through Kay's communication book (連絡帳) and get her prepped for whatever she needs the next day. then it's dinner and Kay's bedtime routine which consists of 2 bedtime stories, her picking her outfit for the next day, and then bed. by that time it's around 9:00-9:30. i end up doing some more work until about 11:00 when i head off to bed myself.
these busy days are only when she goes to school, so i'm glad that she only goes three times a week. :)
on Friday, i treated my friend Claire to a birthday lunch at NY Bagel. luckily, it was just a 10 min bus ride away, so i was still comfortably close-by to Kay's preschool to enjoy a nice long chat with a friend i'd hadn't seen in about a month :)
it was the first time i'd ever been to a NY Bagel, so i was really excited! i was so happy to see that it was open 24hr too (apparently, not all of them are like that in Taipei), so i could get there early after i dropped Kay off at school instead of having to wait somewhere for it to open. :)
i got there around 9:30 and chilled while reading my newspaper and Claire came at around 10:00-ish. we ordered our meals, but weren't gonna be served until 11:00, because their business lunch prices don't start until then. since it was Claire's birthday, i told her to pick from their cake menu, and was surprised later when our waitress came back to tell us that we could pick another piece of cake since it was my friend's birthday! :D she got the black forest cheesecake while i had some carrot cake (score!!!). we had the cake and refillable coffee first while we chatted and waited for our food to be served at 11:00.
last time we met, she told me about a new class she was taking. i don't remember the name of the subject, but it's basically teaching you how to use a new kind of program that calculates what kind of person you truly are. if you're into horoscopes, it's kinda like making a birth chart for someone. basically, everyone is born a certain way and that is your "true self" or the person that you are meant to be. it's only when you are educated and influenced by others that some people become untrue to themselves in order to fit into a certain mold. for example, your parents want you to become a doctor, so you strive to become one, but no matter what you do, you just can't seem to get there, or if you did, you're not happy with who you are, because your "design" wasn't meant to be a doctor. instead, you were born to be a pilot, and if you went down that path instead, you would realize that you would be truly happy because you were being true to yourself. if i've lost you, then don't worry about it because it took her a few tries before i could really understand what she was talking about ^_^;;
basically, this class she's been taking for the past year shows you how to read a chart generated by inputing your place of birth, birth date and time of birth. me being a person who used to calculate birth charts for friends in high school, i was really interested in this, so last time, i gave her my information and Kay's to see how we turned out.
well, she came that day with a thick binder of charts and all her notes prepared to explain everything ^_^ it was quite a lot to digest and very interesting as she explained parts of me and things about Kay that were spot on, like how some of the outfits Kay picks out to wear look better than the ones that i put together, because something in her chart showed that she has a better sense of beauty compared to me ^_^;; Kay's chart also showed that Kay is a thinker and is able to work out problems by herself, (just like her daddy) unlike me who is totally an "empty box" that is meant to be a person who does not have the answers and depends on other people to give me those answers. although, because i'm an empty box, i'm able to accept a lot of things that others would normally reject. Kay's emotions "box" on the chart had something in it meaning that she has the potential to be a drama queen only if she doesn't have a constructive outlet for her to put her emotions into (ie: a journal, sports, music, etc.), while my emotions are run by a time line (ie: my period/hormones). Claire's actually has an empty emotions box in her chart, which means that she's very stable and shows little to no emotions, but on the other hand, she can amplify any emotion that is emitted towards her (ie: if you're happy, she'll be twice as happy for you, or if you're angry at her, she'll be twice as angry at you, etc.)
we talked from 10:00-ish all the way to 3:30 and i don't think we stopped once through the whole time we talked. we were originally going to see The Adjustment Bureau after lunch, but we were having so much fun just talking about all our charts that we decided to stay at NY Bagel and chat until i had to pick up Kay. ^_^
it was a liberating experience, because i realized that how i've been always is who i really am, and that is the reason why i've never been able to change who i am and that i shouldn't because it goes against my own natural being. no wonder whenever i want to try to be "better" or try to meet someone's expectations, i always end up getting lost or emotionally off. in recent years (especially after i had Kay), i've been more accepting of what i thought were my faults and just went "with the flow", and here i am :)
with Kay, she confirmed parts of Kay that i already knew about, but also calmed some worries about her personality for me. Claire also said that i'm the one who has to be pressured in order to be able to do anything. on the other hand, Kay doesn't do well under pressure, but if you give her a goal and motivate her positively, she'll do anything to reach it. this kind of was a reminder for me to ease up on her, because i can be quite strict and harsh with her some times. :/ *chuckle* Claire also said that Kay and i would be a good team since we would be able to get what we needed from each other, but we couldn't be together for a very long time because we would start to annoy each other. in other words, i'd be the overbearing mom and she'd be the rebellious teenager. i could soooo see myself as the overbearing mom..... ^_^;;
i talked this over with hubby, and he wasn't wowed as much as i was but didn't disbelieve what Claire had said. hubby's got a bit of a sixth sense, so when i told him that we had to be careful about a certain part of Kay's personality (ie. her anger/resistance/adolescent years), he would nod his head in agreement and say that he had the same "feeling" about that. i also told him about some characteristics of mine that Claire pointed out that i never thought i had. for example, i'd always thought i was a bit more practical and not much of a dreamer, but Claire said that i was, in fact, a BIG dreamer, which in turn, hubby confirmed. ^_^; he said that i'd always told him about visions in my head about things that he thought were absolutely surreal and would always be confused at how i would be able to think of such things without thinking of the steps that were needed to be taken in order to get there. there was this one time that i told him that i'm not afraid of dying by some freak accident, because i just KNOW that i'll die of old age in my own little house with a big yard and a white picket fence. ^_^ in contrast, hubby would never think of something like that and would instead think of buying insurance, a house, how to get a mortgage, etc. that kind of thing, so he wouldn't be able to jump right to the end and see what i see. hm, guess you learn something every day :)
i had a bunch of chores to catch up on Saturday, so hubby took Kay to the Taipei Flora Expo, and had a pretty good time with Kay. here's one of the vids from that day:
well on Monday, we couldn't go to the playgroup meeting, so we spent the whole day indoors so Kay could get better from whatever she caught at her first day at kindie. i dunno if it was my prayers or the meds or whatnot, but whatever happened, she pretty much recovered from her labored breathing on Sunday. by the afternoon, she was down to just a small little cough, and hyper as heck since she'd been pent up for almost 72 hours ^_^;; so we decided that she'd be well enough to go to class on Tuesday :)
Tuesday, i woke up at 6:00 AM as planned and did my routine of shower, make breakfast, and get Kay ready. we left at around 7:30 and did the whole bus, then metro, then bus commute and arrived at her preschool an hour later. she has a 7-eleven that's about a minute's walk from her school, so i decided that we would be able to have our breakfast there for 30 min before i sent her off at 9:00 and headed to teach my classes.
for those who are wondering why we'd go to a 7-eleven to eat food that we'd brought ourselves, it's because about a while ago 7-eleven started City Cafe where you can get freshly ground coffee at your regular 7-eleven for a fairly good price. it was a big hit and so they started putting tables and seats where you could actually sit down and enjoy your coffee, food or whatnot in the actual 7-eleven. :) i was thrilled when they started doing this for almost all of their stores and then other convenient stores caught on and converted their stores into mini cafes. so, you can also sit down at a Hi-Life or Family Mart. :) they're not that big on checking to see if you're eating/drinking something that you've bought from their store, so you'll see a lot of people just using the seats and tables for themselves while having a nice cool/warm place to sit. i usually buy at least a snack or a drink before taking a seat (usually Kay gets a chocolate milk in the morning with her breakfast), because i hate it when i see someone taking up a seat (they're usually around 4-5 seats per store) eating their homemade bento and clearly didn't purchase something from the store while i have to wait on the side. :/
after i drop her off at 9:00, i have to commute back to the metro and go to wherever i have a class that day which usually takes about 30-40 min. that gives me a little bit of time before 10:30 to prep and get my mind in order before i start teaching. i thought i'd feel weird teaching without having Kay there, but i actually felt relieved, because i was more focused on the kids instead of having to keep Kay from becoming a noisy distraction, which she was at times ^_^;;
my classes mostly end before noon, so i'd get to be able to run errands or go back home and drop my stuff off and work on lesson plans and chores. with the commute home from classes also ranging from 30-40 minutes with an extra 30 min for some lunch, i usually get about 2 hours which isn't much to get stuff done and has to be used very efficiently. since her preschool is approximately an hour away (15 min bus, 15 min metro, 30 bus all including waiting time), i have to leave at 3:00 in order to be able to pick her up between 4:00-4:30. if i'm early, i just hang out at the 7-eleven mentioned above and wait until i see other moms come which is around 4:15-ish. we end up leaving the preschool around 4:30 where i give Kay a little snack at the bus stop. the buses are bit slower around then because of people starting to get off of work/school, so it takes about 10-15 min before we get on a bus to the metro and then wait another 10-15 min for another bus to take us home. ^_^; the moms in my playgroup all look at me weird when i tell them about my commute, but it's either the preschool that she's going to or other Japanese preschools waaaaaaaaaay out there in Tien Mu which would take about an hour and a half... ~_~; the funny thing is that the preschool isn't that far away from where we live (30 min by taxi). it's just the bus-metro-bus thing that takes time.
by the time we get home, it's almost 6:00 where i have to get dinner ready and go through Kay's communication book (連絡帳) and get her prepped for whatever she needs the next day. then it's dinner and Kay's bedtime routine which consists of 2 bedtime stories, her picking her outfit for the next day, and then bed. by that time it's around 9:00-9:30. i end up doing some more work until about 11:00 when i head off to bed myself.
these busy days are only when she goes to school, so i'm glad that she only goes three times a week. :)
on Friday, i treated my friend Claire to a birthday lunch at NY Bagel. luckily, it was just a 10 min bus ride away, so i was still comfortably close-by to Kay's preschool to enjoy a nice long chat with a friend i'd hadn't seen in about a month :)
it was the first time i'd ever been to a NY Bagel, so i was really excited! i was so happy to see that it was open 24hr too (apparently, not all of them are like that in Taipei), so i could get there early after i dropped Kay off at school instead of having to wait somewhere for it to open. :)
i got there around 9:30 and chilled while reading my newspaper and Claire came at around 10:00-ish. we ordered our meals, but weren't gonna be served until 11:00, because their business lunch prices don't start until then. since it was Claire's birthday, i told her to pick from their cake menu, and was surprised later when our waitress came back to tell us that we could pick another piece of cake since it was my friend's birthday! :D she got the black forest cheesecake while i had some carrot cake (score!!!). we had the cake and refillable coffee first while we chatted and waited for our food to be served at 11:00.
last time we met, she told me about a new class she was taking. i don't remember the name of the subject, but it's basically teaching you how to use a new kind of program that calculates what kind of person you truly are. if you're into horoscopes, it's kinda like making a birth chart for someone. basically, everyone is born a certain way and that is your "true self" or the person that you are meant to be. it's only when you are educated and influenced by others that some people become untrue to themselves in order to fit into a certain mold. for example, your parents want you to become a doctor, so you strive to become one, but no matter what you do, you just can't seem to get there, or if you did, you're not happy with who you are, because your "design" wasn't meant to be a doctor. instead, you were born to be a pilot, and if you went down that path instead, you would realize that you would be truly happy because you were being true to yourself. if i've lost you, then don't worry about it because it took her a few tries before i could really understand what she was talking about ^_^;;
basically, this class she's been taking for the past year shows you how to read a chart generated by inputing your place of birth, birth date and time of birth. me being a person who used to calculate birth charts for friends in high school, i was really interested in this, so last time, i gave her my information and Kay's to see how we turned out.
well, she came that day with a thick binder of charts and all her notes prepared to explain everything ^_^ it was quite a lot to digest and very interesting as she explained parts of me and things about Kay that were spot on, like how some of the outfits Kay picks out to wear look better than the ones that i put together, because something in her chart showed that she has a better sense of beauty compared to me ^_^;; Kay's chart also showed that Kay is a thinker and is able to work out problems by herself, (just like her daddy) unlike me who is totally an "empty box" that is meant to be a person who does not have the answers and depends on other people to give me those answers. although, because i'm an empty box, i'm able to accept a lot of things that others would normally reject. Kay's emotions "box" on the chart had something in it meaning that she has the potential to be a drama queen only if she doesn't have a constructive outlet for her to put her emotions into (ie: a journal, sports, music, etc.), while my emotions are run by a time line (ie: my period/hormones). Claire's actually has an empty emotions box in her chart, which means that she's very stable and shows little to no emotions, but on the other hand, she can amplify any emotion that is emitted towards her (ie: if you're happy, she'll be twice as happy for you, or if you're angry at her, she'll be twice as angry at you, etc.)
we talked from 10:00-ish all the way to 3:30 and i don't think we stopped once through the whole time we talked. we were originally going to see The Adjustment Bureau after lunch, but we were having so much fun just talking about all our charts that we decided to stay at NY Bagel and chat until i had to pick up Kay. ^_^
it was a liberating experience, because i realized that how i've been always is who i really am, and that is the reason why i've never been able to change who i am and that i shouldn't because it goes against my own natural being. no wonder whenever i want to try to be "better" or try to meet someone's expectations, i always end up getting lost or emotionally off. in recent years (especially after i had Kay), i've been more accepting of what i thought were my faults and just went "with the flow", and here i am :)
with Kay, she confirmed parts of Kay that i already knew about, but also calmed some worries about her personality for me. Claire also said that i'm the one who has to be pressured in order to be able to do anything. on the other hand, Kay doesn't do well under pressure, but if you give her a goal and motivate her positively, she'll do anything to reach it. this kind of was a reminder for me to ease up on her, because i can be quite strict and harsh with her some times. :/ *chuckle* Claire also said that Kay and i would be a good team since we would be able to get what we needed from each other, but we couldn't be together for a very long time because we would start to annoy each other. in other words, i'd be the overbearing mom and she'd be the rebellious teenager. i could soooo see myself as the overbearing mom..... ^_^;;
i talked this over with hubby, and he wasn't wowed as much as i was but didn't disbelieve what Claire had said. hubby's got a bit of a sixth sense, so when i told him that we had to be careful about a certain part of Kay's personality (ie. her anger/resistance/adolescent years), he would nod his head in agreement and say that he had the same "feeling" about that. i also told him about some characteristics of mine that Claire pointed out that i never thought i had. for example, i'd always thought i was a bit more practical and not much of a dreamer, but Claire said that i was, in fact, a BIG dreamer, which in turn, hubby confirmed. ^_^; he said that i'd always told him about visions in my head about things that he thought were absolutely surreal and would always be confused at how i would be able to think of such things without thinking of the steps that were needed to be taken in order to get there. there was this one time that i told him that i'm not afraid of dying by some freak accident, because i just KNOW that i'll die of old age in my own little house with a big yard and a white picket fence. ^_^ in contrast, hubby would never think of something like that and would instead think of buying insurance, a house, how to get a mortgage, etc. that kind of thing, so he wouldn't be able to jump right to the end and see what i see. hm, guess you learn something every day :)
i had a bunch of chores to catch up on Saturday, so hubby took Kay to the Taipei Flora Expo, and had a pretty good time with Kay. here's one of the vids from that day:
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