May Blues

It could have been pre-destined that May is not a good month for Son No 2.

Son No 2 spent the first two weeks of May taking his mid-year exams - which cover a total of 11 papers. Yes, you did not read wrongly - it is 11 papers for an 8-year-old boy, would you believe it? Let me list the papers again (I have frequently grumbled about this in my previous posts): Malay Writing, Malay Comprehension, Chinese Writing, Chinese Comprehension, English, Chinese Science, English Science, Chinese Math, English Math, Moral Education and Computer. By the time the exams were over, anyone would be braindead, I assure you.

As far as written sit-down exams go, I am convinced that for this age-group, they are biased towards girls. Girls have the better mental attitude and developmental maturity at that age to handle exams. Not the boys. Generally speaking, boys are playful, less meticulous and make careless mistakes frequently. And their attention span is really short. If you were to analyse most exam papers, the careless mistakes start appearing towards the end of the paper.

It is thus not surprising that all the the top 3 scorers in Son No 2's class are girls. It is also not surprising that the top student in the Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE) in Singapore every year is a girl :(( Ya, ya, this is one sourgrape mother you are hearing from!

Anyway, Son No 2 DID beat the girls and came up top for one of his papers. *Hurrah* It's his pet subject, English Science. He couldn't wait to announce his achievement to me when I picked him up from school that day. Heck, not many adults is better than this third-grader (US equivalent) when it comes to English Science! Especially on this topic that he was being tested this term - Animals and Plants. The reward for his achievement? A photo of the magnificent jaguar on my desktop for a week.

May Blues nevertheless continued to follow Son No 2. He was not selected for participation in this year's Annual Sports Day (he won a gold medal last year) and was disappointed.

And he caught the flu bug a few days ago. Normally, I would self-medicate when the children had fever, cough and runny nose. But this time round, with the H1N1 threat in the air, I did not want to take any chances and took him to see the paediatrician. True enough, the good paediatrician said it was a common bug and prescribed exactly the same medicine that I would have given him. As it turned out, I really paid RM50 just for the peace of mind.

So Son No 2 is resting at home now. He can't wait for June as he will be going to Singapore for a holiday. He and his younger brother have been talking incessantly about the trip and are really excited. Let's hope that's the end to the May Blues.