during tuition just now it dawned on me how similar my new little k2 kid is to the lil vampire. except he's not as lazy. but in many other ways, he just reminds me of those days with lil vampire. they just cannot sit still, they don't always believe what you say and must question every single word they doubt, they hate reading... hahaha maybe all little boys have a little problem with language, according to some gp article i read in tj.

i totally have no idea what i'm supposed to be teaching a k2 kid, so now we're just doing some books he has... simple addition and subtraction with pictures so you can count even if you don't know how to do, things like "circle the object that does not belong to the classroom", "match the words with the pictures" etc. the only problem is, he doesn't (or actually maybe doesn't know how to) read the instructions. he'll just assume what he's supposed to do, and usually he's right (ok, the layout of the book makes it quite clear and self-explanatory without instructions la). but i'll still have to get him to read the instructions, cos he's supposed to learn to follow instructions right. especially when he goes to primary school. haha the bigger problem is, he'll just shrug whenever i ask him to read... and say "i dunno". so i have to read the word, then he'll imitate. but, he doesn't always look at the word while i'm reading it, so even if the next page has the same set of instructions he still won't know how to read it.

overall, he's more tame and teachable than lil vampire. but still, they're both cute and innocent (ok, for lil vampire i'd say he's only innocent-looking ;P) actually he's quite poor thing... k2 already need tuition??!! it's such a silly mentality that oh, i must give my kids tuition when they're as young as possible, then they'll be smarter (or they'll know more) than other kids in school. and he also learns abacus... i did that like in primary school??!!! parents are so kiasu! (although i don't complain about earning easy money from teaching a k2 kid la) what's with tuition, if the kid doesn't have the right attitude no amount of tuition will help lor... or maybe unless the teacher is totally formidable and is able to frighten the poor child into doing stacks of assessment. well, i didn't have tuition and i survived what. ya i know, probably not as well as people want their children to turn out, but i still survived! isn't that what matters. and now all my knowledge of chem, physics, geography etc are just rotting in my rusty brain. what's the point.

i think shaun is a really good example of one who grew up very well without being influenced by our education (and not to mention the kiasu) system. his parents really had the foresight when they decided to home-school him. ok, i must admit most parents probably can't do this cos their children don't have a talent and strong passion for music la. so it's more logical to send them to school and let them learn maths and stuff right. not like shaun doesn't learn that, just that he probably had a more carefree childhood free from exams etc... and more time to develop his talent and passion for music. maybe that's one reason why he's so musically mature. his upbringing (and possibly his lack of "bad influence" from the school system) probably made him so different from people like us, he's uninhibited and never self-conscious at the piano. sunday's concert just pushed this fact right in my face. people playing in the first half, people who went through school etc, were of the same mold. their playing was a world of difference from shaun's. not like they're not good or anything, there's just this something in shaun's playing that makes it so special and not to mention, professional-sounding. of cos, they're all older than him (actually not by alot la, for most of them), so you could say they're by nature already more self-conscious. nevertheless, it's just very obvious how shaun's playing totally stood out above the rest's. bleah... and my playing's two worlds away from his! i must totally brain-wash myself and try to play like he does. ahhh how do you try to forget how it feels like being self-conscious when you're already so old?

today's piano lesson was very much on sunday's concert and what i learnt from it, and about how shaun is so uninhibited etc, much of which i have re-phrased above... or put in my own words for things not said or thought by me. hmm actually i really hate myself when sometimes i'm thinking of something but i don't say it, and then later... erm... a bit hard to explain. for example, someone asks me a question and at the back of my head i have an answer but i'm doubting it so i just say i dunno, or think of some other answer (usually stupid ones which i'll later kick myself for saying!) and then it turns out that the first answer is correct. or when eg. ms ching asks me what i learnt from the concert and there's something i want to say but am "not sure whether to say" (see how stupid trying to be politically correct etc is?) ... and when she adds on to what i say, she mentions what i was thinking about! yep, so i guess there are pros and cons of trying to be politically correct... no, i don't consciously try to be, it's just "me"... something subconscious, or maybe "drilled into me" by someone when i was young or something. shall try to be a little less bothered by what i say maybe?

i was sort of "saved by my mistakes" today. haha i was only about 8 bars through the theme of the beethoven sonata when she stopped me and i had to start again. and then it was so bad all the way (while i was playing, at the back of my head i was thinking, die la... today it's going to be a scolding) that when i finished only the second variation, she was super frustrated and told me to stop. lots of my notes were wrong, argh the aiming is quite bad... and everything was just tangled up. so she left me to figure out the second variation "at half the speed", like she said... and she was also nagging about how i play without conviction, emotions etc. then when she came back she let me listen to baremboim's recording of the first movement and by then it was time to go. ok, so all this saved me from having to play the rest of the variations and the other three movements, which are mainly worse than what i'd already played. argh beethoven's been in a mess since i switched to practising for the nafa audition! x(