The rat race begins...

It is but a fact of life that in Singapore, parents take the education of their children seriously, very seriously. In fact so seriously that they are willing to 'sacrifice' 40 hours of their lives so that their precious ones have a fighting chance in Phase 2B and not the 'dreaded' Phase 2C! Those of you who have 'been there, done that' would know what I am talking about...Yep...My BH and I have officially become 'members' of a certain primary school's Parents' Association! "I cannot believe it....!", as a certain character in the Little Einsteins likes to intone when something truly out of the norm happens!

We received a flyer from the FD's school saying that a certain primary school was having an open house last Saturday. Although it's a year away before the FD has to register for Primary 1, hey, what the heck...it's never too early to conduct a bit of recce! So the four of us trooped down to the school on a hot sultry morning. Personally, it's been a long time since I have gone into a primary school and I was amazed at the transformation it has undergone! Suffice to say that they were a far cry from the one I used to go to... We explored some of the classrooms and stalls that were set-up by the students, teachers, staff and parent volunteers. I came away thoroughly impressed with what the school has to offer. On the way out, we passed by the registration counter and gave it only a cursory glance since it wasn't our FD's turn to register yet. Upon further enquiry however, we realised that it was the last day for parents to register to be parent volunteers to be eligible for next year's registration! A full one year before actual registration..."Oh, it's not as bad now", said the admin staff who attended to us, "Last time, it used to be 2 years! Now, as long as you have clocked 40 hours, you are eligible for Phase 2B...But it does not mean that your child will be guaranteed a place in this school! If there are more applications for Phase 2B than there are places, then we will have to ballot. Of course, parents who live within 1km of the school gets a higher priority that those who live between the 1 to 2km radius...". Thus we were 'inducted' into a group of about 60 parents who actively give their services ranging from routine weekly reading programmes, counselling to adhoc events like class outings...Hmmm...maybe I can put my photography skills to good use! Oh...of course there are other 'collateral' benefits of joining as a parent volunteer beside the main obvious one...We get to meet other 'like-minded' parents, we get to extend our circle of friends, we get to see at first hand how the school is run, we get to talk to students who are studying there to find out what the school is REALLY like and we get to be involved! In the end, I guess it is a win-win situation for all involved!

Hmmm, there is that other school open house this weekend...another 40 hours of 'volunteering' perhaps?!?!

(For those not 'inducted' to my blog, BH means Better Half, FD means First Daughter and SD, although not mentioned here, would obviously mean Second Daughter. For those not familiar with the Internet and other 'unwritten' rules on blogging, one should not give away one's names, schools, etc, etc...there ARE many weird characters floating around in cyberspace with extra time on their hands...Also, once you publish something in your blog, it NEVER gets deleted...even if you have deleted it from your site...even if your site closes down...even if your computer crashes! Because somewhere out there, there are always sites that trawls the cyberspace and records EVERYTHING that has ever been published...so for those who like to pour their hearts out in cyberspace...remember, it may come back to haunt you YEARS later! Like when your future boss googles your name to check on you...I may sound a bit like an alarmist but that's the fact guys and gals...so be careful what you publish...)