Graduation #2

This past Wednesday was M2's Grade 8 graduation ceremony.  I was very happy and proud.  But as I am finding these days, moments like this are immediately followed by sadness and empty feelings.  Two years ago, M1 had her Grade 8 graduation and my beautiful wife wrote a blog, titled "Graduation #1."  She didn't describe the events of the ceremony.  She was just happy and relieved to have been able to be there.  She asked me how many graduations she would make it to.  I wished she would make it to all of them.

M2's ceremony was supposed to be in June but because we were in lockdown, the school wanted to wait until September to see if there was a chance to do this in person.  So do we buy a dress or not?  Well, M2 was selected to be valedictorian (just like M1), so I felt we should buy a dress.  Some of YC's lady friends took M2 shopping for a dress.  This was difficult for her because she wanted to do this with Mommy.  Although M2 was very grateful for her aunties helping her, she was sad.  I was sad too because I couldn't do more to help her.  I told her, "You see Daddy's clothes, right?  There's no way I can help you find a decent dress."  But after she got a dress, she was very happy because she looked good in it.  She wore it around the house for several days.

Well, September came and went and it was decided that the graduation ceremony would be done virtually in November.  M2 was to send in a video of herself giving the valedictorian speech.  She put on her dress for that and she said it was nice because it's not as nerve-wracking when it's not in front of an audience.  And if she messes up, she can start over.  She did an amazing job - spoke confidently and clearly.

On November 18, we were all excited to watch the ceremony.  But there were technical difficulties and it was postponed to December 2.  (I can't understand why it took two weeks to fix some pre-recorded video - I assume they had the video ready on November 18.)  So this past Wednesday, the link came out at 9:30 AM.  The girls were doing on-line schooling and I was in a meeting.  M2 wanted to watch but I asked her to wait until 10:00 when my meeting would be over.  So we all gathered to watch at 10:00, except for M3 who was writing a Math test and couldn't join us until 10:30.

Overall I thought it was a nice video.  There were lots of pictures and video clips of the students throughout their 10 years at this school.  I had a lot of emotions - happy, excited, proud, sad.  For occasions like this we always put YC's picture with us so we can watch together.  But as always, I think to myself, "I wish you were beside me so we can see this together."

Big Oh

Elephants in the Room

 

We never addressed the elephants in the room – neither YC nor I.  So I should just come out and say it now.  YC was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer back in January 2014 – elephant #1.  After a long and heroic battle, she passed away in March 2020 – elephant #2.

My wife loved to write.  She wrote when she was happy, she wrote when she was sad, and she wrote when she was bored.  She started this blog to help her deal with her diagnosis – to give her an outlet to express her feelings.  She wrote because it was therapeutic for her.  But she never once mentioned the c word.  She alluded to her being sick but she never used that word.  She told me she didn’t want to because she didn’t want to give the disease more energy, more control over her.  I never mentioned it either.  Even to this day, I have trouble hearing the word.

YC wrote about many things in this blog during her battle – our family, significant events, family trips and outings, restaurant reviews, books she was reading, movies/TV shows, and sometimes just random thoughts.  There were also some entries written by my daughters and by me.  After she left us, I re-read all her blogs.  Then I thought, “What do I do with this blog?”  Do we continue it?  What should I write about?

YC set up a comments section because several friends and family members would email her about blogs she had written.  She thought the comments section would be more convenient.  But no one left comments.  If there are any readers out there that still read this blog, perhaps you can leave me a comment to let me know what you would like to happen to this blog?  Do you want my daughters and me to continue blogging here?  If so, what do you want to read about?  Our lives?  How we’re dealing with COVID-19?  Movies and TV shows we’ve picked up?  School?  Family and friends?

I see there are views of this blog in France, Poland, and the Ukraine.  We don’t know anyone in those countries, so perhaps there is a readership following of this blog outside of our family and friends.  Leave a comment and let us know how you got interested in my wife’s blogging.

Big Oh

Encore Performance

Today (June 5^th, 2020) is the 21^st wedding anniversary for YC and me.  Needless to say, I’ve been thinking about her a lot the past few months.  And the thoughts run the entire spectrum from happy to sad.  I would like to share one of the happier ones today.

Back in 2000, we attended a Leslie Cheung concert.  He is YC’s favourite singer.  It was his last concert – the one where he came out and embraced his homosexuality.  For this reason, it was a really fun concert.  He was being himself and he was just singing for the pure joy of it – one last time with his fans.  You could tell he was having a good time and not necessarily doing a “job”.

We had pretty good seats – they were on the ground level and probably the second tier.  That allowed us to get to the mini-dance floor in front of the stage.  And that’s what we did during the encore.  Leslie called for everyone to get up and dance during his H2O medley.  Since he did this concert in Hong Kong, we already had the bootleg CD and knew that he was going to do this.  The songs in the medley were from Leslie’s earlier albums so hearing those songs was a great blast from the past.  They’re also fast, upbeat songs.  And the thing about fast Leslie Cheung songs is that you can’t help but get up and dance.  I know this is strange coming from someone like me who has no sense of rhythm.  But if his songs can have that effect on me, imagine what they can do for those who are musically inclined.

Anyway, when Leslie started his H2O medley, YC grabbed my hand and we raced to the dance floor in front of the stage.  It was extremely crowded but we didn't care.  We were all being wild and crazy fans, dancing and screaming in ecstasy.  The atmosphere and energy were amazing, unreal, awesome.  As each song morphed into the next – H2O, 少女心事 (Young Girl’s Thoughts), 第一次 (The First Time), 不羈的風 (Unruly Wind), we all cheered the new arrival.  (Think like a fan of Friends going to see a Jennifer Aniston press conference and then have the rest of the Friends cast show up, one by one.)

For those 7+ minutes, YC and I danced without a care in the world, just enjoying the moment.  This night created such a wonderful memory for us and we often reminisced about how great “The Encore” was.  So my love, if you are reading this, I know you will be smiling with me.  Happy Anniversary.

Big Oh

No More Top Ten

I’m not doing a Top Ten list this year.   We all know the top spots are always going to be taken by my three beautiful girls and The Big Oh.  And of course they are followed by my family and friends.   Some things won’t ever change.  But I do have two great memories from this year...

- taking my girls to NYC during March Break, watching HAMILTON & ALADDIN on Broadway, and M3’s special time with The Big Oh at The American Girl Store where she got her first American Girl doll.

- the very fancy family wedding in Orlando Florida this summer, where my girls got to meet & hang out with my side of the family (which they hardly ever do)

This holiday season has been bittersweet.   I got to do what I wanted most, which was to spend a lot of time with The Big Oh & my girls.  But there were/are still many dinners, lunches, and parties that I wished I could’ve attended.   There are still so many family & friends I wish I had the time & energy to spend some more quality time with.

Wishing everyone a happy & healthy 2020!

Words

How do you talk to a dying person?  The conversations don’t have to be full of tears, missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, or regrets.  Sometimes silence is comforting.

Pain doesn’t need to always be acknowledged - it can be understood without words.  What comforts me the most is hearing how life goes on in-spite of all that is happening in my little cocoon because in the end isn’t that what we all want?   We want to know that even if we are not here, the people we love will continue to move forward and seize their opportunities.  They will continue to dream big and do everything possible to fulfill them.   They will love harder and live with more conviction and count their blessings everyday

Y.C.

September

From a young age we are all conditioned to think about and plan for our future.  Even as early as primary school when you get those assignments that ask you to complete the sentence, “When I grow up I want to be...”  we are already told to dream big and anything is possible.  As we leave childhood and enter our teenage years the days of dreaming to be a princess or a rock star make way for more practical vocations like say, an accountant or a teacher.   Life is always about thinking, planning, and dreaming ahead.

When I was younger I was full of ideas of what kind of working career I wanted.  When I was dating in my early twenties I would ponder if each potential candidate would make a good life-partner.  And when I found THE ONE (yes, The Big Oh) my head was filled will all the possibilities our future would hold.  Now that I have children my dreams, my future, are almost always in the context of their dreams and their future, and what role can I play in it.

But “Life” has a mind of it’s own.   My life, my dreams, and my future has been turned upside down, turned inside out, and thrown around so much over the last few years that I’ve lost my sense of direction.  Most days I don’t know whether I’m moving forward, falling down, or at a standstill.  

September to me marks a new year more so than January in many ways.   The kids start a new grade, new teachers, even a new school.   A new dance season starts.  I’m back to organizing and purging all  the summer clothes to make way for the fall and winter ones.  And it’s just a logical time to de-clutter and tidy my home.  So during this week I have been doing all that plus helping my children move forward with their busy lives - talking and listening to them tell me about all the new things they are planning for this year - and fortunately I haven’t had much time to dwell on my own stagnant life. Through their excitement, their plans and their dreams, I can see so much potential in them and I am able to see a beautiful future - regardless of whether I am in it or not.  And that makes me happy.

So for those of you who got thrown a curveball, fell off the wagon, hit a bump, or in the middle of your own whirlwind; for those of you who may have to re-think the path you are taking, or may even had your dreams shattered; look for your inspiration to continue to dream for a (new) beautiful future.

Y.C.

A School Year to Remember

The school year is officially over. This year has been a bit rough. I was told at the beginning that grade 7 was pretty much like grade 6. I was relieved as grade six had been tough so I thought I was prepared and it would be smooth sailing. Well I thought wrong. Yes it was pretty much like grade 6 with some added on information here and there, but my teacher was the issue. Yes that may sound harsh but it's the truth. We had lots of fun during the year, but as a teacher, she should be teaching us. She did not. 

We just got worksheet after worksheet after worksheet. And if I'm being honest the worksheets taught me more than she did and she didn't even make them. She bought the worksheets from an online source! 

Then we would get tests and assignments that everyone in the class would struggle with because she didn't teach us anything. She expected us to know what to do and how to do everything on our own. We would get the tests back and she would tell us she was surprised or disappointed with the marks. The only reason why I got high marks was because I got help from other people that weren't her!   

That then leads me to my next point. She never marked any of our work. She only marked the things that she needed to put on our report card. Other things would just go to waste. There were 40+ items that she did not mark throughout the entire year  (yes I did make a list)! Yesterday I got my report card. I was so disappointed with myself in art. I got a 78%. My teacher always talks about how different people do well in different ways, some people do well during tests, others do well in presentations. So I know I got a 78% on sketching, but we had two other assignments that I thought that I did much better than a 78%. But she did not mark them. She never gave it back to us with a mark. Those other two art projects could have boosted up my art my IF she marked them. Every time we asked her if she brought any marked work she would say she forgot or she was busy the night before. Then we would ask if she could bring the work the next day and she would say she would then never bring it or she would say something like I will try but I might forget. Honestly, this is your job isn't it? What else are you busy with? She isn't married nor has children so there is no hold up at home so I do not understand why she doesn't have time to mark our work. My class did the same exact things as the other grade 7 class. We did the same assignments, had the same worksheets at the same exact time as us and we were only a day or two off of our lessons. My friends from the other class would be getting all their work back within a week of handing it in and they would ask me whether I got it back and I didn't. It was tough. I would say "Oh we'll probably get it back soon" but as the year progressed, I realized it was not going to happen. So now there I was so sad that my friends were talking about they did this right and did this wrong and I stressing every time they talked about marks questioning whether I got it wrong. By the time March came around, my classmates and I realized that whatever she assigned to us wasn't going to come back to us with a mark, as we still didn't have things back from November (which by the way I don't have back now that school is over). 

She doesn't know how to teach either (which probably explains why she just gives us worksheets). We had a probability test a few weeks ago. There was one question that no one in my class got correct. So someone asked her to explain to us how to solve it. She responded with "Umm...I've got to think about how to word it...I'll get back to you". Like, how do you not know how to solve a problem that YOU put on the test YOU are assigning to your students??? She never got back to us. 

Then there was another question where she said the answer was 9/50 and there were students in the class (including me) who argued that the answer was 2/5. Now these are two totally different fractions. 18% vs. 40%...Totally different. When we showed her how we solved it she had to call in the other grade 7 teacher who also thought it was 9/50. In the end my teacher was like "Ohhh...I see. I'm just going to mark them both as correct." Then I said, "I don't think they both can be correct because they are two totally different fractions." She replied saying "At this point I'm going to just mark them both as correct, so do you want the mark or not?" So I just left it, but seriously? 

Another thing that bothers me is that she would always tell us how behind we are and there at so many things we still need to get through before the year ends. But the thing is she always pushes things back and gets side tracked with other unimportant things. And then when the first week of June comes around and we have 10 assignments/tests because report cards are due and she needs a mark for us. So pretty much all the things we did from February to May didn't mean anything because she only marked the things she needed for our report card. All the other tests/assignments were just thrown out the window. 

But what can I do now? The year is over. Nothing about my marks can be changed. I just have to hope that the future students don't have to experience what I did, including M3. 

M2