Freecycle at HDB (Singapore)

One day last week, Kaiser was out with Daddy and as they returned home and opened the front door, Kaiser exclaimed "TRASHCAN JACKPOT! 媽媽我地係樓下執到好多文具, 仲可以用呀!" (translation: Mom we picked up lots of usable stationary from downstairs!) Turned out that someone discarded a desk next to the trash can at the ground floor lift lobby, and father and son rummaged through it and found those stationary inside the drawer. Either the family discarding it didn't bother to look inside, or they just didn't care to pick up the stationary.

Kaiser was so excited that I thought Christmas was here. He started sorting the stationary for himself and for little sister.

To see him getting so excited over someone's discarded stationary - I can't help to think that we did do something right to instill the thrifty mindset into him. But than again, he was with me lots of time when I was doing thrift store treasure digging myself.

In fact, other than usable stationary, we've picked up brand new remote control helicopter toys, guitar and kid's roller blades in good condition next to the trash can at the lift lobby of our housing block. I guess that's "freecycle" in Singapore for you. We are keeping the karma flowing by placing usable stuff (mostly children's - e.g. outgrown Crocs, bicycle helmet, clothing, etc),  and I felt happy that they were gone pretty fast.

Another nice "pickup" - this old-fashioned side table which is serving us perfectly well for keeping newspapers for recycling, while enabling easy access to water, books/magazines we're reading at the dinning table, and snacks/brochures/odds and ends.

Clay Workshop@ Viridian Art House

Kaiser went to the 2nd session of the Clay Sculpture Workshop at the Viridian Art House (sponsored by 大拇指 Thumbsup, again). It was where the Yan Kit Swimming pool was, opposite Liang Court on River Valley Road. The Van Kleef Aquarium was next to it. I remember looking at the fishes in the seemingly numerous tanks. The entrance fee was, like, $1 or $2. How times have changed.

The entire area is now managed by the National Parks Board and rented to Viridian AH, which occupies the previous pool canteen area. The little sister enjoyed looking at Kaiser doing the work.
Also had some interesting conversations with with group of enthusiastic artists, who contributed their own monies to do up the place.

Goofing around on old fashioned swing

From 1st Session

After which S and I went to Liang Court for lunch, and we headed back home while daddy took over, supposedly bringing K to his next activity - Chinese painting. But that fell through because of materials left at home, missed bus, etc. Anyway, the end result was this self-taught session at home, which produced a surprisingly cute, Japanese style drawing with rice bowl, sushi and snake.

Japanese style drawing with mock characters

ABC's Creative Pieces - 中文大作上报 (x 2)

The ABC kid's Chinese pieces featured in two cases:

 

Case 1: 大拇指 Thumbsup, a Chinese language newspaper targeted to primary 3 through primary 6 students in Singapore. Kaiser participated in a poetry writing workshop for his age group, held on the Singapore flyer sometime back, and the paper published selected pieces.  

Kaiser's 蜘蛛观景轮 poem was said to leave a "deep impression" on the NIE lecturer, one of the teachers at the poetry writing workshop, even though it was grammatically incorrect to say 蜘蛛蛋 - should be 蜘蛛卵. This is Kaiser's short and sweet poem:

摩天观景轮 / 像一只蜘蛛 / 每只脚上有一个蛋 / 过了一会儿 / 蛋里的小蜘蛛 / 会生出来

rough translation: The Flyer wheel / looking like a spider / every leg attached an egg / after a while / the little spiders inside the eggs / will hatch out

Think he got brownie points for his creativity more than his Chinese standards, that's for sure. What is heartening though, is that the NIE lecturer appreciated this sort of creativity!

Mr. junior Cheng also received his first ever 稿费 of SGD $8 dollars!



Case 2: Lianhe Zaobao 联合早报 - 小白船篇幅 (targeted for primary school children). The narratives are true (that he forgot to bring his wallet, and a nice gentlemen handed him $5 on the bus for bus fare and lunch monies). The piece itself did received some guidance from the Grandpa.