Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Class Monitor


When JJ arrived home on Monday evening, she was full of excitement. She had with her a red tie to be worn the next day at school. At first I did not know what it was all about. Mia is mostly the one who's really into JJ's school activities. It turned out that JJ's class has a peculiar system of rotating the role of Class Monitor amongst the students. If I am not wrong, they have 2 permanent Class Monitors and 1 more on rotation basis.

Well, last Tuesday was JJ's turn to be the Class Monitor for a day; and she's required to put on that red tie. That night I prepared the tie for her. She deligently arranged the tie together with her school uniform.

The next morning, just before she left for school, Mia took a picture of her with the red tie on. I wasn't around when this picture was taken, as Mia and JJ usually leave the house very early. I must have been still in the bathroom shaving and brushing my teeth then.

By the way, I swear it's not my idea to cut JJ's hair that short. I prefer her to keep long hair, but of course Mia has the higher authority as far as JJ's hair is concerned. And as you can see, her permanent set of front teeth have emerged too. For this particular shot, JJ is posing painfully straight with both her hands on her sides. It took me a long time to cut the habit of the "V" sign with her fingers. So I must admit that I'm happy with this particular pose (without the "V" sign), though perhaps if she were a bit more relaxed it would've been perfect.

It's hard for me to imagine JJ as a Class Monitor. She's kinda too small for her age, and she's always the target of bullies in her class. But maybe that's also one of the reasons why she's so excited that, for only one day, she had the authority in her class. I doubt that her class mates would actually obey her instructions anyway.

I don't know what's the reason her class has the rotation system for the Class Monitor, but perhaps it has something to do with giving the opportunities to all the kids to experience some kind of leadership in a small way. I suppose it's a good idea. So I guess JJ will have to wait another 40 days before it's her turn to be the Class Monitor again.

It's comical too see her excitement. When I fetched her home from her grandma's on Tuesday evening, all the way home, she related to daddy and mommy about her day in school as the Class Monitor. She's so proud of her job for the day. And both Mia and I were so happy for her. Now if she'd pass her coming exams with flying colours, we would be even happier.


1 comment:

Cornelius said...

I was fairly amused when I received a text message from a friend this morning. He said that JJ looks like a Japanese kid. Well, that's because her daddy has some Japanese blood in him!

My real grandfather was a Japanese Soldier who held a high post in the army, and was assigned to the North Borneo during the Second World War. He married my grandma, but while grandma was expecting the playboy (search my past posts to find out who's the playboy), the Japanese lost the war when atomic bombs were dropped in their backyards, and they had to leave North Borneo. It's an exciting love story of yesteryear.

Claire, the virtual master hunter, suggested that I write a book about this love story, but I haven't actually embarked on it up to now.

Anyway, the summary is that the poor soldier had to leave without ever seeing his son. We attempted to trace the chap from the millions of people in Japan some years ago but failed. We have since given up and abandoned the search.

Maybe I should write a bit about this grandfather stories (literally about my real grandfather) one of these days.