Private School Fair

Private school is big business in Lembah Kelang. Increasingly parents could afford private school, and some do so due to be coming disillusioned with the Ministry's actions over the years when it comes to medium of instruction. It was in English for Math and Sciences until recently. Then came the scrapping of UPSR. One never could guess what would they come up next.

The decision for me was straight forward. I feel that getting them proficient in English from an early age is important, and the local public school our kids were assigned to was well below par. We could do what other parents do, appeal, use some connections to get into better school or even resort to using an alternative home address in areas where good schools were available. In the end, we decided to enrol into private education, and with Sri Utama round the corner from our place in Gombak, it was the easy option.

Last weekend, we went to a School Fair at Mid Valley to look at other options. Irfan was upset however as he was not keen to switch school. But the reason why we went was to look at secondary schools later. There were a few schools which now offer boarding. They actually looked tempting, as I don't think our boys would be able to secure places at government public boarding school coming from private primary.

List of participating schoolWe spent more than an hour looking around the fair. Spoke to a few schools. And then the boys got excited when they saw their headmistress at their school's booth. She must be wondering what we were doing there. She might be suspicious that we were thinking about switching school.

On the whole it was a good outing. At the very end, we came across a booth by an afterschool agency called The School. It is located at Jaya One and will be opened later this year. Children can go there an enrol into music lessons among other things. And Idlan was excited to join.

The Fair was scheduled to be done yearly. This time, it was doing Ramadhan which curbed our enthusiasm somewhat.

Homework!

As usual, getting the boys to do their homework every night was a big exercise for my lungs. I had to get then to concentrate and they were easily distracted. Idlan actually finished his homework before dinner and Irfan decided to do his after watching TV.

As soon as they finished their dinner, they were running around with their guns again. Another shouting natch before they started to behave. Ten minutes later, then the homework was done. He could've easily finished it he had his meal .....

Better Today?

Was it any better today compared to the day before? Well, the visibility was almost the same, but the pungent smell that was driving me dizzy the day before was gone. The air was now more bearable.

Can't really see the sun in the morningNotice at Bangsar VIllage IISunlight finally breaking through by the afternoonThe boys' school were still closed, so I actually joined them for lunch at Bangsar this afternoon. I was late though but luckily managed to get a parking spot still. Even though the normal schools were already opened, I spot many school children around with their parents during lunch. It was very likely that the parents took the day off anticipating school to be closed, and it was opened instead, they might as well made the day out of it. The air was still unhealthy to be quite honest. School being opened also meant heavy traffic in the morning.

It started to become cloudy - not that I realised it - come late afternoon and before ling, I could see thunder and lightning in the horizon. Rain was coming. The bad thing was, it inky lasted about ten minutes. It wasn't enough to wash the haze away ....

Hopefully tomorrow would be better .....

Concert Tomorrow

Tomorrow would be the boys' annual concert. Both would be taking part, with Idlan having a small solo role. Not sure what would be happening as he intended to keep it a secret. I tried to pry and bribe, but no can do.

Unfortunately, the costume for Irfan turned out to be a bit too small. We had to do a quick alteration to salvage things. Hopefully it would turn out OK.

The concert would also start a bit later than usual, at around 11. I had cut down the clinic to finish at around 11, but I thought it would be a struggle. I might be able toncatch glimpses of their performance.

Better charge up my camera for that tonight .....

After the Trip

So, what did the boys got me from the Tower? An absolute zip! Idlan bought some chocolates. Irfan bought a pen. That was about it.

But tonight, both of then were tired with the exploid. Idlan especially enjoyed his time with his buddies. He was talking about it all night during dinner. Irfan did not have much to tell, but they seemed to have enjoyed the trip.

Next school activity would be their school concert next weekend. It would be in a Saturday afternoon. Hopefully I would be able to reach the concert hall in time after my clinic. It was too late to cancel it already. Looking at the list, if would be a busy one.