Of origin and extracts

Happy 2010! I know I'm late but hey, better than never :)

I've gone all quiet for a while because real life took over... the helper went on home leave, my parents moved in, the kids needed to be reminded that school's starting and getting them back into gear was quite a feat. All the habits they acquired during the school break - waking up later, doing minimal studying and playing all day - needed to be dumped, and unfortunately not without tears and resistance.

With mum and dad living with us now, meal times are taking a whole new dimension. The kids are eating better because they can't say no to mum's cooking. And neither could I nor the husband. And we really can do without the extra calories but we succumb anyway and in between mouthfuls, we talk about our very brittle self control. And the cycle continues, the more we eat, the more mum cooks. Not sure if we would describe the cycle as vicious, maybe deliciously vicious?

Sara goes to a new school. She loves loves loves her pinafore because Farah also wears a pinafore to school so that puts Sara into the big girls' league. She loves loves loves taking the school bus. And she is loving her new classmates and teachers whom she's described as pretty. Alhamdulillah as I let out a huge *phew*!

As I was going through the paperwork to get her transfered to a new school, I have had to fill out quite a few forms and I learnt, at least in the school system, there is now something called "Indon extract" in the "Race" column. Since Singapore is still hung up over classifying people based on race, I had a good chuckle because I was no longer identified as "Javanese" in the system, but rather as an "Indon extract". Is this called clarity in ambiguity? No, I didn't think so too.

I wait for the day when my children would come across this "race" and will ask if Indon extract is the same as beef extract.