I think I screwed up!

That in itself is a huge statement..that too coming from me!

First of all, it is the SAT my son wrote couple of weeks ago.

Unlike his sister who knew what she wanted to do and how to go about it, my son only decided to write his SAT exam in May end of March. And then he was busy fixing up his car and was building a speaker box for his sub-woofer from scratch. Although as a rule I never tell my kids to study, having seen my son not touching a book, I thought I would tell him to study. Which was a big mistake. He called his sister and asked her if she studied for her SAT and she was in the middle of her Uni exams and was annoyed with him for bugging her and replied she didn’t.  To be honest, she didn’t study, however she did go through the practice exams four days before the test. My son felt because his sister didn’t study and I nagged him to study, he is not going to study. I also forgot to buy the books for the new format SAT. He wrote his SAT without studying and with no clue as to what is the actual syllabus. In a couple of weeks, he will get his SAT results and let us just say that I am not very hopeful.

I also screwed up with his subject selection of IB. He moved to a new school in grade 10 and at the time he joined, he was doing Physics, Chemistry, Economics as his major subjects. I remember sometime in term 2 he came and told me that he doesn’t like Chemistry and wants to switch to Computer Science and I said fine. We both forgot one critical point. All engineering degree  programs have Chemistry as a prerequisite. He received a letter from Caltech that they won’t consider his application without Chemistry!

Uni of Qld has an intense Chemistry bridging course starting 3 days after he finishes his IB exams. He and his mates were planning to head for schoolies celebration for a week right after his exams. I know it is unfair to ask him to study right after his final exams, not  when all his friends are having fun.

The other option is defer admission for a year, which means he will be off Uni for 2 years(He finishes grade 12 in November 2017 and won’t start until Sep 2019. I am not happy with that for I think 2 years is too long.

So, all in all.. I screwed up.. big time..

I had a beautiful mother’s day with my children. I spent a bit of time evaluating my current and future role as a mother and this is what I think.

Until now, I spent every bit of my  time with my kids and everything I did was with them in my mind. And now they are tiny adults on their way to be full adults. It is time for me to do the things I wanted to do. It is my time.

Last Friday eve, I went out for dinner and walk with friends and came back home very late. In the morning when I got up, there was a note on the kitchen table. “Mom, good morning, we are going out to eat brekky and do a bit of shopping, your tea is in the microwave”.

Now that my son has his own car, he takes the girls out for brekky, drop them to wherever they want to go and fetch them after parties if they ask him.

My actual role as a mother has drastically reduced. I was a bit worried about how I will function when I have too much of free time. I go out to meet with friends more often, read a lot more, take the dog for walks a lot more.

It is actually so much fun to be a mom of three teenagers with half the load of work( to do as a mother).

I hate public speaking. 18 months of my masters degree, I avoided all the assessment that required me to speak/present one way or another. (Often asking my group members to present). In Manila, I did have to do power point presentations and I hated it very much.

Couple of weeks ago, I had to go to the Uni to meet with a Professor. I never take the lift as I really want toned legs and intend to wear short skirts in to my 70’s. Just as I was going up the steps, a staff from another department whom I know vaguely was coming down the steps. She was wearing a beautiful dress and I told her that.

10 minutes after that, I got an email from the Director asking me if I am free to meet him right away. So, I went to see him.

Turned out that they desperately needed a tutor for medical students as the current one had a family emergency and the person  whose dress I commented on  was heading to attend the crises management meeting  and she mentioned at the meeting that she just saw me and think I should be asked.

Long story short, I got a job as a tutor. I wanted to stick around in Brisbane this year till my son finishes his grade 12 and had declined the job offer in Manila. This job was perfect. But the only issue was public speaking. Apart from the fact that I never ever taught medical students until that moment. I heard from other tutors that it is a very hard job as most medical students think of themselves as high and mighty. Plus this was the middle of the semester and I have no clue what the students have already being taught.

Last Thursday was my first class and this morning my boss forwarded me a mail that was sent by a student.

My point is writing this point is about fear. We all have fear of not being able to do something. But there is strength in all of us. If you set your mind in to something, you can do it. I proved it.

My best friend came to visit me last week. Apart from BE, he is the one friend I had kept away from my family, especially my oldest sister.

Silly as it sounds, my sister had this need to steal my friends. It started with the niece of our neighbor who was studying in Kottayam and used to visit my neighbor once in a while and  ended with my senior at medical college who was staying in the same apartment complex where I was living in KL. The last one was really a traumatic experience. She and I were good friends when we were medical students and imagine my happiness when I found her staying in the same apartment complex. Our children were good friends and I visited her often. My sister came and stayed with me and she and my sister became good friends and their friendship continued even after my sister moved out to her own place to such an extent that my own sister would come to the apartment complex to visit my senior and  not her own sister! One day I visited my senior and Yaya kept saying my sister’s name and finally I asked “is my sister here?” Hearing that my sister very sheepishly came out of the room she was hiding. I have never talked to my senior after that.

Sorry, I was digressing.

Anyway, my best friend had a meeting in Sydney and decided to come over to Brisbane and visit me. He bought me my favorite coffee and a slave.

I like to start my day with tea and then the rest of the day I drink coffee. By now you all know that I am very picky when it comes to the things I use. For coffee, I only use single origin coffee and insist on the bean, roast etc that suits my taste.  When I was visiting India, I loved Kalmane coffee and  my friend bought me a few packets of Kalmane coffee.

But it was the slave that I want to write about.

I had an extensive collection of music when I was studying medicine. I could only study if music was playing in the background. A lot of my music had events/memories attached to it. So every time I wanted to remember something, I played the music that was connected to it. When I was leaving for Malaysia, my mother told me that I can’t take my music tapes as they belong to the family as some of it was bought by my father. It was such a devastating blow. In one strike, she took all my memories away from me. I never ever could collect my own personal collection after that. Over the years, my friends have given me ipod, spottify account etc and I have never used them. I just couldn’t bring myself to start collecting music again. My friend knows about my inability to start a music collection again and how much I miss listening to music

He gave me an Amazon Echo (Alexa) and  linked it  to his account. Not sure how he has done it. He has even sorted out various playlists for me. This morning all I had to say was “Alexa, play my favorite music” and the first song was Dire Straits Money for nothing. It was one of BE favorite song. I remember him singing this song. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, white with blue prints, a Khaki shorts and his trade mark hat when he sang this song.

My family is totally screwed up, but I have wonderful friends who will do everything they can to make me smile.

I am happy today.