New Orleans Chinese Language School

Meredith started attending weekend chinese school in New Orleans every Sunday afternoon. This school is staffed by volunteers from chinese community in New Orleans and has been around for 30 years. It is pretty well organized with students being group into different classes and age group. There are probably about a hundred students spread in different class.

So far, Meredith hated chinese school. She said it is very boring. She ranked it in the fourth place behind ballet class, swimming class and her regular pre-kindergarden class.

In the 4-6years old class, there are many parents who stayed with their kids during the class. A number of them are very opinionated, and makes a lot of suggestion on how to teach. I am impressed with the teacher for having the patience to handle the parents in addition to the normal teaching duties.

Surprising words from Isaac

I was using my laptop early this morning on the breakfast table when two years old Isaac approached me. Isaac just woke up and he was still rubbing his eyes. Suddenly, he said something that took me by surprise. Issac said,"can I use the laptop to check email?" in perfect sentence. He doesn't even know how to read and I don't think he knows what is email.

"Accident" principal

Meredith came home one day from her school and told Boon Hong that her school has an "accident" principal. Boon Hong was puzzled and asked her what does she meant by accident principal. Meredith said her school principal is Miss Blake but there is also an "accident" principal in addition to Miss Blake. We finally figured out she was referring to the assistant principal but she mispronounced it. The assistant principal will certainly not be happy to known as accident prone.

Meredith at her classmate's birthday party. Most of her classmates organized their birthday parties at "jumping castles" warehouse where kids bounced off gigantic inflatable slides.

Meredith at her classmate's birthday party. After attending a lot of kids birthday parties, I noticed there is not a lot of food for adults at typical american kids birthday party. I much preferred Asian style kids birthday party where parents get to eat a lot...

Boon Hong got very good at baking various chinese style pastry after living in New Orleans since there is no place to buy these from. She started making these pastry/pau with yam and red bean filling a year ago and eventually got really good at doing it.

Isaac's pant got wet after going to the swimming pool, so he had to wear Meredith's dress on the way back.

Meredith first week at school

Meredith has started the first step in the long road of formal school life. She finished her first week of pre-kindergarden last week. There are very few good public schools in New Orleans, a lot of people here chose to send their kids to private school and ended up spending thousand of dollars every year on school fee. We thought we had to go same route and send her to private school when we were looking around for school last year.

At the same time, we decided to let Meredith attempt to test into a public run advanced studies school. This school is a lot of cheaper than private school and has very good reputation. Students at this school are doing curriculum a year ahead of other school. For example, kindergarden kids here will learn materials typically covered in first grade/primary school year one. The enrollment at this school is very competitive and only about 40 students made it each year out of a few hundred applicants. Thankfully, Meredith accepted and we can save $$ from private school fees.

Meredith in her school uniform. Boon Hong spent a lot of time shopping for her uniform, shoes and school supply.

Isaac getting ready to send his big sister off to school.

Due to budget cut in the government funding, parents have to help support the school by supplying the crayon, paper towels, tissue paper, ziplock bag, glues, pencils and Lysol cleaning spray.

Meredith and her classmates playing at our house. These two classmates also attended the same playschool with Meredith last year, so they have some company together in the new school.

Exercise time

Isaac always carry his "schoolbag" whenever Boon Hong drives Meredith to school even though he doesn't go to school. He put a transformer toy, water bottle and also a toy gun in his school bag and he likes to pretend he is going to school.

Passing through BP Macondo oil spill site

Recently, I passed by BP oil spill site during an offshore trip. It is impressive to see the armada of different drill rigs and vessels congregating on this area. The rigs/vessels seen in this photo included Boa Deep, OI3, Skandi Neptune, DDII rig, Enterprise drill ship. The sight of these many highly capable vessels/rigs working together are unlikely to be seen again for a long long time.