Claire...titude

Yap, this piece will be primarily about Claire and more so how blessed I am to have her as my first born.

Just attended Claire's Parent-Teacher-Meeting (PTM) this morning and I really feel so proud of her. Academic aside, her form teacher Ms Teh gave a glowing account of her attitudes towards learning and helping others. That Claire remains undaunted when faced with challenging tasks, has a remarkably positive attitude to improve, keeps an open mind for new ideas and takes advantage of opportunities to try out new things, communicates well with teachers and classmates confidently, helpful and kind towards the weaker students... ...

What can I say except that I have so much to learn from her. She epitomises the qualities that I have always been striving for (but still trying at my age!!!!). As usual, I was trying really hard to fight back tears (crying instinct is rather hard to suppress, regardless of age). With that glowing account, she has been made a prefect for next year, much to my worries too. Not sure how she's going to cope with so many CCAs and school work. Been trying to prepare her too that there's nothing glamourous about being a prefect, it's all about a willingness to serve others and many a times, it's really about putting others ahead of you.

Academic wise, she did well though not well enough for prize-giving on Thurs. Initially upset, she's okay with it now. She has really done very well given that both MY ONE and I were so busy at work during her examination weeks. Credit goes to her as she was literally left on her alone to do her own revision. Science was her weakest, 2 points short of Band 1.

I am really happy and proud of her. Only thing she needs to work at now will be techniques at handling difficult characters, really an art more than science that yours truly is still very weak at. But Claire is blessed with a playground/research laboratory at home with 3 different characters to hone her people skills. She's cognizant of that and hopefully she'll take advantage of this learning opportunity as well for ultimately, my wish list for all my kids would be one of a wholistic person - civic minded, has leadership qualities and people skills, but yet able to serve and take care of the weaker ones in our community, don't have to be exceptionally good academically, just good enough to provide for themselves.

But most important of all, have faith in God that strong that they will be able to achieve the above with His Grace. I continue to pray and ask for his guidance as his steward to my four gifts on this journey.