Nothing much ...

... been alone for a month. Me having all the time to myself and me exhausting all my writing energy on flyers, brochures, emails and reports.

It's kind of nice though, to hear that the big one was asked by my son's teacher whether he (my son) has English tuition, because the boy's English is ok she says. I better not read in-between the lines else I'd go off on a spiel about the education system back home. The big one told her, "No. Mother teach."Also nice to know that his maths and Chinese are ok too.

The boy though, has decided that he prefers school here in Shanghai ( not a problem now but would be an issue when we move back to Singapore). Other than seaweed, chips (same store) and drinks from the vending machine, he's not attempted to buy anything else from the canteen. He's bought a Chinese chess set, a Singapore flag, some stickers for his cousins and not sure if he did buy it eventually, but definitely something he did consider buying - a mechanical multi-colored pencil, from the bookshop.

His Summer Holiday
- lots of meals with the family
- 3-day beach holiday in Mersing, Malaysia
- had a blast at a gathering with his kindergarten school friends
- went to Universal Studios ( pong-tang school one Friday) with his dad.
- survived 8 violin lessons with his 'old' violin teacher
- spent one evening at the new Pasir Ris public swimming pool
- went cycling at East Coast Beach a couple of times
- went to school for 6 weeks
- fell ill for a week
- had his jabs
- went to the dentist
- had a wonderful birthday party at downtown east explorer (organized and paid for by my dear girlfriends)
- didn't finish his summer holiday school work

He's flying back here tomorrow.
Another year begins

Our phone call

Told him I bought a monopoly card game but have not tried it yet because I have nobody to play with.
> He tells me I should open it and start reading the instructions so that we can play it when he gets here.
Told him I also bought a 2X2 rubik cube and that I tried to very hard solve it but couldn't. Explained that these cubes normally come in 3X3... he knows what it is but couldn't understand what I meant by 2X2.

Told him we'd give him a budget to buy his own birthday present at the toy shop.
> What's a budget? He asks.
Well, it's an amount of money.
> Twenty dollars?
I think it's going to be a bit more than that... if it's not enough, you can use your savings to top up. Or if it's too much, you can save it for another day.
> Orh.

Then we talked about the Toys R 'Us in Shanghai vs. the one in Singapore. Told him to shop in Singapore because the price is cheaper.
> It's because one Singapore dollar is 5 Renminbi, that's why it's more expensive.
No, when you do the conversion, it is still cheaper.
> What is a conversion? He asks.
...I explained with a couple of examples...
> Orh. Then proceeds to tell me he wants a control car... the one that is being sold in Shanghai - the one that comes with the steering wheel.

He tells me when he is coming back to Shanghai and that I should buy some dumplings from the market the day before he arrives so that we can cook them when he gets here.

I told him I cleaned up our apartment.
> He made me promise to drive his 'drifting car' on the floor to test (the cleanliness)....saying I should be able to make the remote control car crash to the wall if the floor is smooth.

I told him about the green worm I found curled up on the handle of our electric kettle.
> He asked if the worm got electrified.
Told him no, electric kettle is for boiling water. Won't electrify the worm. Told him I threw the worm away
> Asks why I never take some newspaper, put the worm on it - a newspaper big enough so that it will not crawl on my fingers - and bring it downstairs to the bushes.
Told him I didn't think about it... because I'm a girl and I don't like worms.
> He laughs, tell me he is not afraid of creepy crawlies and asks what I would do if he had a creepy crawlie.
I told him he would have to live alone.
> He tells me he doesn't like spider webs but he is ok with spiders. He doesn't like them because of the insects on the web. Tells me that spiders live in between rocks and that the web is only for catching their breakfast, lunch and dinner.
(I didn't know that!)
> Tells me again I should have brought the worm downstairs...
What if I threw it out of the window?
> Then it will smash onto the ground!!!
Oh.

Typhoon

City issues typhoon alert as menace of Muifa looms by -- THIS year's first typhoon alert was issued this morning as Muifa was moving closer to Shanghai, packing winds of up to 162 kilometers per hour and threatening havoc in the next two days, weathermen said.

>>> I should stock up some food and water?

August

Flew back to Shanghai last week. Alone.
They come back here at the end of August.

Meanwhile, I hear the cicadas for the first time. From whence they come I don't know but they are making a huge din day in and day out, from morning to night. I imagine they are simply sizzling in the summer heat on wu-tong treetops and complaining as loudly as they can but no, apparently, it's a love song.

I have been reading and finished 
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Wallpaper Magazine August Issue
I am fifteen and I do not want to die by Christine Arnothy
... and about to start on
A very short history of the world by Geoffrey Blainey

I've also watched a couple of movies, caught a cold and recovered sans medication, went for a session of yoga, visited Tanzifang at Taikang Lu and started clearing out 11 months of living excesses from the apartment.

Another 4 weeks.