Summer Plans

Now that I'm a working mum, I feel as though I have to be super efficient in order to get everything done ... even though I wasn't particularly inefficient before, but when your time isn't your time anyone (that's the biggest difference between being at home and working outside full-time), the need to get things done really ramps up the efficiency quotient.

Anyhow, here's the brief plan of what summer 2017 will look like for us:
1. R&R (Resting & Reading)
Tiger has two big bags of books that I've borrowed from the library to keep him occupied for the summer.  A quick glance into the bags show there to be a mixture of genres: 

Please note the above represents an aspirational list, and I am not fussed whether Tiger reads any of them or not.  He knows where the books are if he wants to read them.

I have a similarly aspirational list summer reading for myself:

I have a separate list of technical (work-related) books that I want to get through too, but I believe there are great benefits to be had from reading and thinking about different things (as opposed to work stuff) for a few weeks a year. 

2. S&S (Sea & Sports)
The boys are getting into sea kayaking, so will be spending time this summer taking courses in that.

And because they must always take something up a notch, I've been informed that they are thinking of 'upgrading' to power boating, later in the summer.

On a relatively more sedate front, Tiger and I will be spending a week at the Jurassic Coast, taking a residential course in geology and fossils.

3. F&F (Friends and Film)
My closest friend, a woman who I knew for over 20 years, is visiting and staying with us for a few weeks, so we'll be spending a lot of time together.  This friend of mine is a huge Harry Potter fan, and she wants to go on the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, so that goes into the summer plan too.

Tiger didn't want to go on the tour when we had a Harry Potter theme in our homeschool about 18 months ago, but he now says he will go on the tour when my friend is here.  I'll probably also take her around London and Oxford to see all the relevant Harry Potter locations.

Back to the Modern Day and Beyond

Does anyone recall our visit to the Muckleburgh Collection?  Can you believe that was three years ago?!

While we were in Norfolk, I thought it would be good to revisit this marvellous museum where Tiger and I spent a whole day carefully looking through every piece of equipment.

Strangely, this time it took us a little more than 2 hours to go through the collection, and we even spent 45 minutes at the cafe to have lunch!  Maybe it took us much shorter time now because:

• Tiger is bigger now so he can read faster, walk faster, and
• his interest in military history has moved past its peak from three years ago.

In any case, I am glad I was able to fully support his interest back then and gave him all the necessary exposure that he craved.

From the (slightly) historical military vehicles at the tank museum, we moved on to a modern luxury brand saloon car assembly plant.

 It was a fascinating tour of the Jaguar assembly plant, seeing the robotic arms at work.  No photos were allowed in the plant, but you'll get a good sense of what it is like from the video below:

However, I am more intrigued by the incredible corporate turnaround of the brand:

While we were not running around, we managed to do a bit of potting while enjoying the lovely spring flowers that in bloom.

Meanwhile, Tiger is devouring a new series of sci-fi books -- yes,  he has finished reading all the Star Wars books we can find.

He is now moving on to Star Trek.

According to Tiger, Star Trek is more relatable because the story has earth as the anchor planet for the crew -- a planet that Tiger has some familiarity with.  Despite this, Tiger remains a big Star Wars fan, along with his best friend at school.

The boys are currently in Wales enjoying their boys-only, male-bonding trip.

This gives me plenty of time for the much needed me-time, hence my able to write two blog posts to provide some catch-up news to all who are interested.  A few more days of peaceful and quiet time for reflection before I go back to the relentlessly frantic stress of work. 

May the Force be with Us

One of the key positives for Tiger in attending school is to have found a best friend in his class, a French boy, L, who shares his passion for all things Star Wars.  Tiger spent a whole day hanging out with L at his home (talking non-stop about Star Wars, according to L's mum) and also went to the cinema to watch the latest franchise movie:

Since I have not totally forgotten my previous role as a homeschooling mother, I then followed up with Tiger's interest by taking him to the Star Wars exhibition.

Given his current obsession with Star Wars, Tiger really enjoyed the exhibition.  I am not a sci-fi fan in any way but I have found the slightly philosophical theme (about making choices) of the exhibition to be interesting.  We had the opportunity to 'mould' a character by the end of the exhibition, and the below are our Star Wars characters:

Back home, Tiger whipped out the dot-to-dot book that I got him for Christmas and started playing with it.  Doing the dot-to-dot is nothing especially intellectual, but Tiger enjoys it, as so I, and doing what we enjoy is a good enough reason to carry on with the activity.

Besides, this is how we have always supported and will continue to support Tiger's interests, aligned with his increasing fleet of Star Wars models.

If you happen to be as ignorant about the various space vehicles as I am, here is a video that I have found to be useful to bring me up to speed with what the Millenium Falcon is:

Of course, one needs to know about Walkers:

Where does this obsession begin?  I trace it back to two Christmases ago.   Since then, Tiger has caught the bug, despite my best efforts to distract him from it.  When I saw that I could not save him from it, I let him immerse himself by reading all the related books we could get our hands on.

 

Having said that, I must confess that I struggle to see the importance of knowing the entire chronological history of Star Wars...

A Very Special Monkey

For those who are not familiar with the Chinese zodiac signs, I wrote about it in this post.  This year being the Year of the Monkey, I decided to introduce Tiger to one of the Chinese classics, Journey to the West ( 《西游记》）

As with many Chinese children, Tiger's first introduction to this Chinese classic is through animation:

After seeing him become enamoured with the cartoon above, I told Tiger that the cartoon shows only a very selection of the monkey's journey, and that it is part of a very long Chinese novel.  He immedidately asked me get him the story.  I got him the abridged, single-book version of the classic to see how he got on with the story.  At 528 pages, the abridged version gives a good overview of the actual novel but when I asked Tiger whether he read about the characters' encounters with certain demons, Tiger realised that there are many juicy and interesting adventures that are being left out, so he asked me to get him the unabridged, four-volume version:

1. Volume 1 - 576 pages
2. Volume 2 - 424 pages
3. Volume 3 - 464 pages
4. Volume 4 - 440 pages

Seeing Tiger read this Chinese classic novel in English translation (I read the original Chinese version) brings back memory of my own experience of reading Pride and Prejudice in Chinese translation at about 12 years old.   Obviously it is always preferable to read a story in its original language as certain linguist nuances and subtleties are often lost in in the translation process, but where one's language skills are not up to the required standard to allow one to read the original text, then finding a good translated version is the next best thing to do.

When Tiger has read the four books through twice (it took him about a week), I showed him a TV series based on the book.  While this classic has been adapted into movies and other performances many times over the years (the latest one being a new movie based on one of the major adventures from the book):

the 1986 TV version is the one that I think stays closest to the original novel, and the actor who played the monkey is acknowledged as unsurpassed in his interpretation of the character:

Journey to the West is the most popular, accessible of the four major Chinese classics.  Even those who have not read the book would know about a number of the fantastical adventures of the main characters in the story.  However, although the story is written in the form of a historical fantasy/myth, the story has a much deeper, spiritual meaning to it, in a very similar way that The Lord of the Rings is so much more than a fantasy story. 

The following video is rather appropriate as a new year wish from me to you: may your year be full of wonderful adventures!  I know mine will be!

(I know those are apes in the video but they belong to the same primate family as monkeys.  Besides, they make me laugh, so that'll do for Chinese New Year.  I'm sure Sun Wukong would approve!)


*Disclosure: some links are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you click through and buy something.


This post is linked up to:

1. Collage Friday
2. Multicultural Kid Blogs
3. Hip Homeschool Hop 2/16/16 - 2/20/16
4. Finishing Stron #77
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one that started with an amazing Valentine gift

Year of the Monkey

The Year of the Monkey started last Monday.  The celebration usually lasts 15 days so we have two weeks to mark this significant Chinese festival.

As with last year, Tiger and I found an Chinese New Year-related activity to do in London.  This time, the National Gallery had a short workshop on decorating the Peking Opera mask, so we went along and did that.

Although the workshop emphasised creativity, which Tiger exercised plenty of, his mask doesn't look particularly Chinese in colour or design, so I asked him to read the Origins of Chinese Art and Craft as well as Lianpu in order to look into the significance of the design and colours of the various traditional Peking opera masks to understand that they are not chosen randomly.  We also found the following clip useful to give us a better understanding of this art form:

From the National Gallery, we walked to Chinatown to buy a few special items in preparation for the Chinese New Year as well as to eat a hearty meal.  It is interesting to see that we have chosen exactly the same food as last year.

Once we got home, we started decorating the house by putting up various decorative items around the house, much like what people would do to decorate their homes for Christmas.

Many of the Chinese decorations have symbolic meanings that usually mean well-wishes and the ushering in of good fortune and prosperity for the family.  Unlike a child who grows up in the East who will understand the symbolism behind the various Chinese decorations through sheer exposure to the culture in his environment, Tiger does not have such luxury so he has to find out about the symbolic meaning of the various decorations through reading books.

This year's New Year's Eve dinner was quite special in that I bought the 'Yu Sheng' (鱼生) from Chinatown.

This dish is like a raw salmon salad that is only eaten during the Chinese New Year period, and is a tradition of Chinese living in Southeast Asia.  It is a dish to be eaten with family and friends as a way to welcome prosperity for everyone in the new year:

*Disclosure: some links are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you click through and buy something.


This post is linked up to:

1. Finishing Strong #76
2. Collage Friday
3. Multicultural Kid Blogs
4. Hip Homeschool Hop 2/16/16 - 2/20/16
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one that started with an amazing Valentine gift
6. Practical Mondays Link Up Week #2