A Relaxing 4th of July Weekend

We had a good 4th of July weekend, spent with good friends and good food. Maye and John invited us to their 'country' home up in Sonoma. It was an easy 1.5hr drive up north on the morning of 4th July. Guess everyone was either away or staying indoors, taking respite from the heat.

John's little 'cottage' was tucked away in a quiet neighbourhood, and we had a great time just chilling out in his backyard.

Nicole with Shayman

On Saturday, we had a picnic at Vasona Park, Los Gatos, with Shaayla's good friends, Ryan and Alya. It was too hot for pedal-boating at Vasona Lake, so everyone just relaxed at the park instead. Of course, for the kids, it was the carousel and the steam train ride that was the highlight of their afternoon.

Shaayla and her pals, Ryan and Alya

Goodbye NetApp and Heloo AMCC

It has only been 6 months since I wrote in last my blog where I said goodbye to EY and moved on to NetApp. Now I writing again after having resigned from NetApp to join AMCC (Applied Micro Circuits Corporation) as their Revenue Manager. There were several factors that made the decision to leave easier (e.g. politics, back stabbing and favourtisim).

I am a strong believer of the work environment being the most important factor is how someone performs his/her job. No matter how glamorous the company, if the work environment is bad, then you're not gonna enjoy your work and that ultimately translates to bad business for the company. The company ends up hiring, training, rehiring and retraining. Look at it this way, work will always be there if you're dead or alive. It will not go away, so if youre gonna be dealing with it, might as well do it in a good environment.

From day 1, I had a nagging feeling that I was being set up for failure. That is the worst feeling any new employee can ever have at any job. I had endless amounts of one-on-one sessions with Senior manager and seniors who would pull me to the room and tell me how bad the next employee was. I had never heard or worked at a company that had so many dissatisfied employees who would keep "bitching" about the next guy and say a sweet hi thereafter. Then there was the boss who depended so much on his Senior Manager that he would believe anything she said no matter how obviously it is to everyone else. You felt like you were constantly fighting a loosing battle within your own group. Instead of having problems with various other departments in the organization (which was a normal thing) you were fighting with the people in your own group. How sad is that.

The final straw was when I realized that email communication to me were being "blind carbon copies" or bcc or "better cover kacheng". I was shocked to see that email communications to me were being sent on a bcc to the senior manager. What was worse was that the person sending the emails was from another group (she was previously in my position) and sending email communication to me with a bcc to the senior manager. From that day on I lost respect for both of them. And what was worse was that when I told my boss about it, he did not do anything.

Now tell me if it was worth staying in such a utterly bad environment worth the 1 year. I certainly would not no matter what the price.

Only time will tell how the environment at AMCC would be but since leaving EY things have not been good for me.

A busy month of June

It has been 1.5 months since our little bundle Shayman arrived. Things were definitely hectic and frenzied the first 2 weeks, but we're all much more settled down now. Shaayla is every bit the big sister - hugging and kissing her little brother, and helping with the diaper changes, even trying to give him his bottle.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we went cherry picking at Brentwood. It was our first time there and I was amazed at the crowd. Cars were parked all over and people all over the place. Suresh offered to babysit Shayman at home while I took my Mum and Shaayla. She had a good time with her friends at the cherry orchard, where we got peaches and apricots too. It were all over the streets. We then had lunch at Singapore Old Town Cafe at Dublin. The Char Kway Teow was yummy, but can't say the same for the Mee Siam and the Sambal Kang Kong which our friend, Sam, ordered.
In June, Shaayla also started her swimming lessons with Fremont Swim School. It's now the beginning of summer, so it's an excellent time to start learning. She enjoyed her first 2 lessons, but just this week, at her third lesson, she said she didn't like it so as the coach made her go underwater. Well, hopefully she'll get over her fears for it. We can see she really enjoys playing in the water.

June also marked another 'milestone' for Shaayla. She 'graduated' from her preschool on June 4 and will be starting Junior K the following week. There was a little graduation party in school to mark this mini effort. She really enjoyed her teacher, Ms Priti, and her friends in her Intermediate class, hopefully she'll cope just as well in Junior K.

Hello, Shayman

We welcomed our new little bundle of joy, Shayman Ren En Sasidaran, on April 19, 2008. He arrived at 12.43am, weighing 5.5 lbs and measuring 18.5". Shaayla has been a really enthusiastic big sister.

Are we educating our child the 'right' way?

This entry stems from 2 recent events (if they can be called that) that brought to my mind how we're educating our children.

The first incident was a piece of news that came out early this week about 8 teens in Florida, US, who were charged with beating AND video-taping the beating for the sole purpose of putting the video up on the Internet for the world to see. 6 girls cornered and beat up another girl while 2 guys acted as lookout. The victim was comatose when she was admitted to the hospital.

The first thought that came to my mind was - what has happened to this world? People seeking out violence for the sake of entertainment? The kids were obviously wrong, but I think when we step back and think, we ask - what did the parents teach them? Did they teach them violence? Did they teach them that lives do not need to be valued? Where did the parents fail?

As parents, Suresh and I always find us questioning ourselves - are we teaching our child the right way? We hope to impart good morals through practising them ourselves and bringing them up in a loving environment, but what if things go awry? Do we blame ourselves, as parents? Because we have failed in educating our child 'properly'? I believe it must be so, because no child is born with negative intentions. As parents, we nurture them as best we can and hope they can be a good person.

The other incident which also sparked the question of 'are we educating our child the right way?' stemmed from an online discussion topic on a Singapore mothers' forum board that I belong to.

The topic started as a vent on Singapore's education system and developed into a very meaningful discussion among parents on what their pet peeves about Singapore's education and their hopes for it.

Suresh and myself went through the tests and exams type of education system in Singapore and with reports of Singapore's education topping international standards, we begin to wonder if educating our child here (California) was the best option.

We've both come across stories of how Singapore students are expecting to churn out model answers and that virtually guarantees a good exam grade, but is that what we want? A child who excels in exams but who questions nothing? Certainly not. We know where our education brought us and it's not something we want to inculcate in our children.

The discussion highlighted 'scary' things like primary 4 students in neighbourhood schools forced to do primary 6 level maths, handholding so preschoolers can do creative writing, teachers not accepting alternate answers (even though it's right) because that is NOT the MODEL ANSWER. If that is the education system being pushed onto kids in Singapore, then we now know we made the right decision by educating her here.

Much more learning comes from having fun than the ability to recite mindlessly from 100 to 1. Sure we get frustrated with her 'whys' and 'but whys', but we'd rather have a questioning child than a yes/no answering child.

Busy Weekend

Last weekend was a really busy one.

What started as a short trip out on Friday evening for ice-cream turned out to be Shaayla's first movie at the cinema. We were at the San Jose Capitol Drive-In theatre a little too late and failed to catch the 7.20pm showing of "Dr Seuss's Horton Hears A Who". We decided to drive by the AMC theatres at Misson College and luckily enough, there was a 9.20pm showing.

It was Shaayla's first trip to a cinema, so we were rather apprehensive. But she was very well-behaved throughout the movie, and she was obviously paying attention to it as well. It was a good movie with a relatively easy to follow plot, so I guess that made it easier for her to understand.

Shaayla and her friends, Katelyn, Ryan, and Alya

Then on Sat morning, after her usual Mandarin class, we had lunch with our usual friends before heading back home for Shaayla's nap. Suresh had mentioned picking something up from Johann's home at about 4pm, so I needed Shaayla to take her nap, else she'll be cranky.

As it turned out, our friends had arranged a surprise baby shower for me. I was truly caught off-guard and overwhelmed by the amount of effort all our friends did to organize it. It was very very touching and memorable.

Our dear friends who organized the baby shower

And on Sunday, while Suresh took time in the morning to study in the office, Shaayla and I had a relaxing morning. In the evening, we headed off to "Babies R Us" for some last minute shopping of baby stuff, before making a stop at Whole Foods and Wendy's (for dinner). And we still made it back in time for Suresh to catch Star Wars on TV.