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Friday, July 16, 2010

Gong Gong

Little Boy has a reputation in school. In Primary One, a visiting teacher remarked to his form teacher, when she saw Little Boy "Oh look at that one!! He is sooooo cute!" The Form Teacher smiled indulgently at Little Boy, and replied "Yeah... he is my gong-gong one." Gong gong = a nerdy and absent-minded someone who never knows what is going on. When Little Boy told me what had happened, I was worried that he had had his self-esteem damaged, but well... he seemed ok. And then, BOTH the form teacher and I referred to him as gong-gong in emails and sms-es.

Please don't do that to your kids. It can scar them for life. But I did anyhow because Little Boy is really really very gong-gong... and since I felt bad about posting this, I sought his permission to blog about it. It has been months but I finally have his permission.

The school organised a massive CCA sign-up exercise. Little Boy badly wanted to join the swimming club. I filled out the form and gave it to him. Everyone, including I, had stressed to him that he was to drop the form into the CCA box. When I picked him up from school, he had forgotten. I sent him back into the school because Swimming Club is an extremely popular CCA, and if you handed in the form late, you wouldn't get a place.

He came back to the car all huffy puffy but happy.

Just before bedtime, he asked me "Mom... I couldn't find the CCA box but I saw something called the Suggestion Box. Do you think teacher will see my form if I put it into the Suggestion Box?"

I sat up and stared at him. Then I asked myself "Which part of the in utero development of this Little Boy went wrong, and could I have done something about it?"

I messaged his new Form Teacher (Ms Priscilla See, who didn't approve of the term "gong-gong")... who messaged back "No it is NOT alright!! No one opens the Suggestion Box" ...

... and then the next message read...

"How can he not know where the CCA boxes are!? He passes them everyday on the way back to class from hall assembly!? They're bright yellow and spanking new and they smell of new wood!"

I could almost hear her incredulous squeak at the "smell of new wood!" part of the message. Loudly UNspoken was the word "gong-gong", much as she didn't approve of it.

Ms See and I decided to let Little Boy stew in the juices of his gong-gongness. We told him we wouldn't help. Poor Little Boy spent an unsuccessful recess trying to dig his form out of the Suggestion Box. He went and asked the general office clerks to open the box. They scolded him of course and then lo and behold, the form had quite disappeared. Poor Little Boy dithered here and there... and then came home with a new form. I made some fuss about filling out the same form twice, but filled it in anyway.

What Little Boy didn't know (because both Ms See and I were so intent on teaching him a lesson in situational awareness) was that we had both called the Teacher-in-Charge of the Swimming Club and reserved a place for him. The form was a formality.

Since then, it does seem that he has much improved.

8 comments:

Fresh Fry aka 福星 said...

ah, so Little Boy needs lessons to get on in life. heng this gong-gongness isn't permanent. kekekeke...... =P

Open Kitchen Concept said...

Oh.. that is a funny story. Well, if you are reading this, Little Boy. Don't worry. I had problems like this too. When my dad brought me to see my brother for the first time after my mum gave birth.. According to my parents I had an outburst and wailed at the hospital. After much coaxing, my parents found out it was because I was expecting an older brother instead of a younger one. How anyone can expect an older brother to come out from my mum's tummy, none of my family members could explain.. After 9 months of seeing my mum pregnant! But hey.. I turned out fine.. sort of..

Petunia Lee said...

Hahahahahahahahaha! OKC, you turned out more than fine!!

I too had stories like that. Little Boy inherited MY gong gong genes.

Petunia Lee said...

Fry - Actually, this gong-gongness is forever. I'm a gong gong too you see, so I speak from experience. One just learns to cope. But our whole family is gong gong. The Daughter stood at Popular Bookstore choosing pens. Someone fainted and there was a big hoo-ha. At the end of it all, I found out that she wasn't aware of anything at all!!

That's why I never allow her to come home by herself after dark. She probably will be unaware that she is being followed.

Blur Ting said...

LOL, but his gong gongness is so endearing.

Petunia Lee said...

Yeah... he IS so cute when he's gong-gong sometimes.

Malar said...

This is really funny! i was some what like that too at young age. I think most of us have gone thru this phase of "blur era"! ;-))

Petunia Lee said...

Malar - Oh really? Everyone? I always despaired at myself and my kids. I always thought we were really really sotong!!