Of Time Capsule and PLKN

The initial weeks after the school hols always seem crazier and busier. These last 2 weeks are no exception.

My time also got lost in this... my new toy! My Mac Time Capsule! With a 1 terabyte of server quality storage to match! It's a wi-fi station too. Had some trouble getting it communicate with my MacBook initially. There are still some teething problems but I like the fact that I can do my backup minus the wires. And it looks cool too! All Mac stuff do! 8)

Son went off for his National Service today...took time off from work to send him off this morning. There was a markedly smaller crowd at the Stadium today. The other camps collected their trainees yesterday. Am I worried? A little but he has been moving around quite a bit and even to Cambodia in the last couple of months. Half the time we would not know where he was. That's also a lesson in trusting God too. I guess we're kinda getting used to having him away from home. The lil sis will miss him more than us, I think. Anyway, we get to visit him on weekends...

My thoughts on NS. I think he'll enjoy it. I hope he does. Most of my students do. Even my friends' kids who cry about not wanting to go end up crying not wanting to leave the camp at the end of their NS. Crazy, huh? I even have a friend who was so glad that I encouraged her son to go cos she said it was good for him and the family. At PLKN, these kids are taught to write home to their parents and express their appreciation! For her, that was priceless! Yup! For kids like mine who attend a Chinese school, this would be a good experience for him to be with the other races. It's an opportunity to learn to see others minus all the racial inhibitions and biasness which all of us carry.. assuming the trainers don't play the brainwashing game there like the BTN. And he gets 6 free meals plus some allowances too... 8)

He has friends who are deferring. Sometimes it's the parents who are more afraid... afraid to let their sons and daughters go... in part also because of the adverse news that we read. I look at it this way, it's something that they need to attend cos they've been called. You can't go through life paying your way out of every thing you don't like... it makes you 'buy-able' too in the end. Private colleges have been on a blitz to recruit students ever since the end of SPM. You have the early intake in January... some 'dodgers' sign up for the Jan intake. Then you have the March intake, right after the SPM result... that also served as a dodging excuse.

We're telling our boy that 2 years of Form 6 after his NS are also meant for him to discover himself. In a sense, it's a luxury we're affording him as we're not compelling him to finish ASAP; and support us.

It has become easier to let him go... at church yesterday, this was reminded to us... that we release our children... Am reminded of what the late Rev Hwa Chien said in one of his sermons long time ago... children are entrusted to us. There comes a time when a child must leave his parents... and we must be ready to let them go. Else we will shackle them down.