Making history : first person I know to fall into Swan Lake of Singapore Botanic Gardens

Date : July 19, 2008 (Saturday)

Time : around 10 am

Venue : Swan Lake of Singapore Botanic Gardens

On Saturday, Snowylad made history by being the first person (I know) to actually fall into the waters of Swan Lake in SIngapore Botanic Gardens.

It was supposed to be a normal weekend outing for the family, except this time Snowylady and Snowylass decided to take a walk around the pond in a different direction and told us boys to go ahead.

We were armed with fish feed and the children (and mummy) love to feed the fishes, the terrapins and the swans.

After pouring out some feed to a capsule for Snowylad, I settled down to do so for myself when a wild swing caused the 2.5 years old boy to lose balance and splashed into the pond.

While that end of the pond was not so deep, it was deeper than the boy was tall.

Fortunately, he ended up falling backwards and he floated with his face above water ... and he didn't struggle much.  His face registered shock, surprise, not thankfully, no panic.

In my hastiness, I couldn't locate the mobile phone in my pocket, and lowered myself in without removing it.  I got him and a kind man helped take him from me.

It was another good thing that there was a short ledge so the waters were just halfway above my knees.  Neither my mobile nor my electronic car lock got wet.

As I stripped the wet clothings off boy, his mum and sis came back.  And of course he flew into her arms.

Good thing I packed chocolate milk, his favourite, on that outing.  I think it helped calm him down.

By the time I returned from putting away the wet clothings in the car, and changing my shoes, he was already walking barefooted along the pond again with mum and sis.

Snowylady confessed to me later she had a scare when she learned he fell.  She still wonders whether he had a bad fright.  For what it's worth, he was laughing and able to tell others "I fell to the pond." 

Snowylad always liked running around, especially in the park where we lifted most restrictions on him running.  Hopefully he'll remember this lesson positively.

I had always read of kids falling into ponds, creeks and streams in books where people lived closer to nature, but this is the first time I actually saw it happen, and to a 2.5 year old.

Well, Singapore doesn't really have much opportunities for kids to fall into the water and get wet.  I won't have much of a fright if it happened when Snowylad was older.

Best way to do a Bicycle Crunch Exercise for the Abs?

I found through the net this exercise, it's great. But after a couple of times, it felt too easy.

The video demonstrate the standard way to do it.

I made some adaptations :
1. My head is supported by my kids' small beach ball held by my hands - relieves the stress on the neck.
2. Bring the raised knee as close to my chest as possible
3. Cross the alternate elbow beyond the kneecap.

Just wondering if any experts out there got any advice/suggestions.
Am I doing it correctly? Am I risking some injury or overlooking something in my adaptation?

Sad day when a parent realise his child is learning to deal with temptations

Mob mentality, peer pressure, learning to handle it is part of growing up, I know.

It is not fruitful to wistfully wish that my own child will do no wrong because she will always make the right decision.

Having been no angel myself when I was younger (and not even when I'm older now), I do empathise with the process of growing up for children who will be making more and more decisions of their own.

Even with all the love and guidance, all children will be tested in the real world.

Today, Snowylass and her classmates, all of them except one, traumatised a frog at the backyard of their school. Among 15 of them, only 1 girl stood up and insisted it was wrong.  The rest, to varying degrees, bullied the frog until their teacher came.

I was not shocked that Snowylass did such a thing, especially when all her classmates were doing it.

I was not shocked that she was not the girl who stood up against the crowd - I know it is not always an easy thing to do.

I can only convey to her my disappointment, and explain to her why it was wrong.

Snowylady is very sad and wonders if this would not have happened if she was able to be a stay-home mum and have more time for the kids (my fault that she has to work).

But I assured her that even if she was a stay-home mum, our children will still face these trials and not necessarily pass all of them.

I understand fully that for a child to truly learn, she must be free to make her choice.  And failure to make the right choice is part of the learning process.

My only question still unanswered is how can we as parents, equip them as best as possible, to have godly values, to make the better choices.

At the school, when we were told this upon our arrival to pick them up, I took Snowylass to the backyard, and then asked her to throw a stone on me as she did to the frog.

She dared not, for fear of punishment.

So how do I make her really realise that being struck by stone really hurts?

As of now, we had told her she won't be going to her friend's birthday party because of this.

That is just a penalty.

We had talked to her to get her, not to understand what she did was wrong (because inside, she does know it was not right), but to help her to be able to have the resources within her to stop and think instead of being carried away, and to have the courage to do the right thing and not the wrong thing when such trials come again.

My take on organ trading

Recent reports on conviction of 2 Indonesians in Singapore for organ trading got Singaporeans talking, reflecting sharply differing views on whether organ trading should be legalised or regulated.

Letters from those who fear the abuse, those who see it as disregarding human dignity, and letters from those who had personally or who had family members receiving an extended lease of life from the transplants, and letters from those describing the life on the brink.

I had much thoughts, and this entry is a just a brief summary of my take on some of the issues.

Start at the beginning - the patient.

How did the patient end up in such a state?

Very rarely were people born with malfunctioning organs.

Another possible cause, as in the case of Andre De'Cruz, was having organ failure after taking unsafe supplements.

Or from accidents.

Generally, it resulted from the patient's lifestyle, either informed, wilful or actual ignorance.  Generally, each individual has a responsibility over his/her own health.

It might be a case of "closing the barn door after the horse escaped", but it is relevant in understanding that generally, patients need kidney transplants due to their own failure to care for their own bodies, for one reason or another.

This is something to bear in mind for parties demanding organ trading to be legalised, as if it is a right to make a bid for the organ of another human being.

Now let's look at the supplier, not the donor but the seller.

Why do sellers offer to sell their organs? For money of course.

But is their purpose for getting the money relevant?

Poverty - well, poverty is their condition, but it does not indicate whether the money from the trade, which is theirs by all legal rights, will be put to good use to make a long-term difference.

Money do run out.  S$30,000 or even US$30,000 may seem like a lot of Indonesian rupiahs, but it won't mean a lifetime of leisure for the family.

There's many real life anecdotes of "easy come, easy go".  If the government do allow people to sell organs because of pressing needs (not for shopping from LVMH), it also must look into ensuring the sellers gain in the long-term, or they will soon be considering selling another organ or getting another family member to take his/her turn to be the seller.

 

Having looked at buyer, seller, there's the middle-men.  In many illegal trades, or even legal trades when it was allowed in India until 1994, middle-men not only ate up the lion's share of the price, there were reports of outright abuses, such as tricking men into unknowingly having their organs removed.  It is not beyond impossibility to get people into debts to force them to sell their organs.

I do not think I am on a moral high horse to expect that every means must be used to protect the organ suppliers from being abused, exploited or forced into the trade.

 

In an ideal world, there is enough transplants coming only from donors.

But in an ideal world, there would be very much lower demand for transplants as people take better care of their own health.

Rants : drivers ignoring zebra crossings

Date : Friday, July 4, 2008.

Time : 9am.

Place : zebra crossing @ Holland Village next to the shopping centre.

So what if there's enough time for the driver to drive past us safely without speeding up.

We, i.e., me with 2 hands holding onto each of my kid, were already walking on the zebra crossing.

My eyes saw red, my leg lashed out in a ... disappointingly lame ... kick which neither disabled the Honda Airwave nor send it to the moon ...

The driver stopped the car, I crossed the road and then carried Snowylad with one arm and held on to Snowylass with the other.

The lady driver came out and said "干么撞了我的车？"

Wonderful, a non-local, or at least not born in Singapore, from her accent.

She reasoned she was neither speeding and there was ample time for her to pass us.

Around us, English speaking Singaporean women were scolding her, as she protests that she does not understand English.

One Japanese man came up to me and give me his number, said he witnessed the whole thing and is willing to be a witness.  Thank you Mr. Kyoji, or Kyoji-San.

I lashed out because this type of incident happened to often, to others I witnessed and to myself too.  Being a driver, I too am too well aware of how careless I was before and how it led to accidents.

I told the driver if she disputes she was in the wrong, let's get the police to settle it, and she took it as a dare.  I called 999.

While waiting, I slowly cooled. Me and the kids are all right.  The driver offered some sort of apology.  What really mattered to me was she acknowledged she should not do it and would not do it.

Not really wanting to wait, I called 999 again and asked if we could leave if the dispute is resolved.

Okay, said the dispatcher.

I took a photo of her car, and then she told me how shocked she was when I lashed at her car.  Even offered to let me feel her "shaking hand".  Whatever her intentions were, I'm really not foolish enough to get so close to her.

When she asked to exchange phone numbers, I said let's just take down her driver's license.  She said she didn't bring it out, she was still in PJs after sending her daughter to school and didn't being her bag out.

Forget it, I don't want to get further involved - it might get messy, with her not bringing a driver's license when she's driving.