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Eunoia, I know yah, he know yah

So they really named a new JC, Eunoia Junior College. It comes from the Ancient Greek word εὔνοια, meaning “beautiful thinking”.

It is also a rarely used medical term referring to a state of normal mental health. I suppose you could say it's a school of the mentally sound.

According to the MOE, it's pronounced "yoo-noh-iea".

I think it was thought up by TriedTooHardia.

At least they didn’t try to rojak Singapore history with Greek etymology and name the school Sang Nila Eunoia Junior College.

Maybe the fifth uni will be called Eunoiaversity of Singapore. Opening next door, Paranoia Primary School and Pneumonia Secondary.

Taxi drivers will probably keep sending EJC teachers and students to Eunos by mistake.

Pop Quiz: What is the favorite football team of Eunoia JC? Juventus.

I am sure new condo projects will sprout around EJC. They will given names like Le Eunoia, Eunoiaville and Eunoiasia. If someone managed to get away with selling a condo near RI called Rafflesia even though it’s the name of a huge smelly flower, then you can get away with any condo name.

A new town centre will probably open nearby. It will be called Eunoiapolis and Eunoiahub.

They should have taken a leaf from the old Compass Point that was renamed to the super hip "1 Sengkang Mall". Can call it 1 Eunoia JC. Everything is cooler with a "1" in front. Better yet, do a "one north" and call it "one eunoia". Atas siol.

According to news reports, the first batch of Eunoia JC students will come from Catholic High School, CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' School and Singapore Chinese Girls' School (SCGS). Wah, the Catholic High boys must be very happy.

Kimgeks from SCGS will be happy in this JC. Because you nonya mah.

One day, I hope to see more local-sounding school names. Instead of Greek, why not Malay, Hokkien or Singlish names? Why not Bagus JC (because every school is a bagus school), Simisai JC (because they simisai also good) or One Kind of JC (because they one kind of smart sia).

Or pander to the Singaporean colonial hangup and name it The Royal Junior College of St Cambridge of Oxford by Kent.

Wah lau eh, you know I'm just joking around.

Hey, that's a cool name: Wah Lau Eh JC. When people see their solid results, people will say, "Wah lau eh, your JC very tokong, man!"

This will be the school cheer for WLEJC

"Everywhere we go-oh!
People want to know-oh!
Who we are-ah!
Where we come from!
So we tell them!
We are from Wah Lau Eh!
Mighty mighty Wah Lau Eh!
Wah Lau Eeeeeeeeh… oooooosh!"

The browns go to Yabuli, China

After a hectic Christmas season, we packed our bags and flew to Yabuli on Boxing Day. Where is Yabuli, you ask? It's near Harbin, China. And it s very very cold here. -22°C during the DAY kind of cold.

We are here for our very first ski holiday, at Club Med Yabuli. The wife, Isaac and Joy are with me on this adventure (Faith is home with grandma and Aunty, because she doesn't do long flights well). We took a flight to Beijing and then a connecting flight to Mudanjiang, which is two hours away from Yabuli by car.

I will update you guys more when I get the chance. I'm sure you would like to see me in my winter clothes, layered up like a polar bear.

Brrrrrrrr.

Our Christmas Door

We don't have a Christmas tree this year (because the living room is filled with my bicycles and a new Doob beanbag) but we do have this Christmas decoration on our front door drawn by Joy. All three siblings are represented here.

To complete this decoration, the door bell tone has also been changed by the kids to Jingle Bells. It makes ringing the bell a lot longer than just Ding Dong but I'll let this one slide because it's Christmas.

mrbrown and The Momma Shop: This Christmas

Blessed Christmas from mrbrown and the gang from The Momma Shop! (And in case you are wondering, yes it was done in one take. Took us many, many tries though. Haha!)

The Momma Shop is James Lye, Anson Koh, Sikai Goh and Titus Ng.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/OnbMnKfo9zY

Soundcloud audio:

We started on the shoot very early in the morning, and as you know, I am NOT a morning person. The boys were also working late nights and all of us showed on that morning looking like zombies. Somehow, we managed to get the take we wanted, after countless rehearsals and retakes. Poor Shawne, his arms were so tired by the end of the shoot, holding the camera and stablizer, haha!

Sikai was rocking that pianica, also known as a blow-organ. I tell you, that guy can play ANYTHING. That's really the pianica you hear in the solo, played by him. Titus, Sikai and I were fooling around with the toy guitar and pianica on Snapchat, while James and Shawne set up. You may have seen some of our musical antics on Snapchat that morning.

I believe the mozzies in that forest also got fat that morning, feasting on our legs. Good thing we had repellent. I sprayed that all over me like some cheap cologne.

We hope you enjoy our little happy song. And may you and your loved ones have a blessed Christmas!

CREDITS:

Vocals by mrbrown
Video produced by James Lye & Shawne Koh
Filmed & directed by Shawne Koh
Music produced, mixed & acapella arr. by James Lye
Music arranged & performed by The Momma Shop

Social Media Links:

mrbrown:
http://www.mrbrown.com
https://www.facebook.com/mrbrownlah
https://www.twitter.com/mrbrown
https://instagram.com/mr_brown

The Momma Shop:
www.facebook.com/themommashop
www.twitter.com/themommashop
instagram.com/themommashop

James Lye:
www.facebook.com/jameslyemusic
instagram.com/jameslyemusic

Shawne Koh:
https://www.youtube.com/shawneydepp
https://www.instagram.com/shawnekoh

Sunshine

Something struck me over the weekend when I took Faith and her younger siblings to a theme park.

It is very precious to see her smile and very hard to capture on camera because it comes and goes so quickly.

Faith’s autism means she spends a lot of time sucking her tongue. It’s her sensory thing, her way of coping with the world around her.

So when she smiles, it’s like a ray of sunshine. You know she must be very happy. Happy enough to forget sucking her tongue for a moment, happy enough to overcome her sensory problems, and just smile with delight.

It is such a raw and pure moment to me.

It’s even harder to photograph her in a family photo. She finds it hard to keep still. She doesn’t always look at the camera. “Close your mouth, Faith! Look at Papa’s camera! Haha!” we would say, in vain.

She hears us and tries to smile but it always comes out squinty. It’s very cute.

It is almost as if her brain cannot tell her mouth to smile. Her smile has to be unconscious.

We take smiling for granted. It comes so easily to us. We can even fake-smile when we are sad or angry inside.

But Faith smiles for real. She can’t fake it. She cannot consciously smile on cue. She has to work through so many roadblocks in her nervous system to get that smile out.

And then once in a while, in a family photo moment, she reaches out and touches your face. Another thing my non-verbal firstborn doesn’t do often.

And that’s when you feel her love and affection in that one awkward touch. And you smile too, covered in the warm rays of her sunshine.


This article originally appeared on my Medium blog.

A day of big silly smiles

It's the school holidays again, and those of you who are parents will be familiar with this:

Son, on school holiday: "Pa, I'm bored."

Me: "Oh! You're bored eh?"

Son: "… Never mind, never mind!"

You can hear the "Abort mission! Abort! Abort!" going off in his head.

My kids know better than to tell me they are bored during the school holidays. Because my reply would usually involve one of two words that start with "H" and end with "work".

Still, I try to take them somewhere in the course of the week, or they will drive whoever is at home with them (usually my mom and the helper) crazy.

We went down to Universal Studios Singapore to check out Santa’s All-Star Christmas at Universal Studios Singapore (USS). USS isn't a place I go often because A) it's kinda far (Sentosa leh, it's like another country) and B) it isn't the cheapest thing to do. But for the kids, it's a big treat. So, thank you for the tickets, USS.

You can see the big silly smile on Faith's face when she was there.

We took care to let her ride the kiddie attractions that won't frighten her autistic senses. I think she was okay with most of our choices except the flying dinosaurs one called Dino-Soarin', in Lost World. She held on to me a little when I pushed the button to make our Pteranodon "fly", and wanted me to put her seat belt back on even after the ride. I told her, "Finished already, Faith, haha! We can take off the belt now."

Faith enjoyed the sedate Treasure Hunters in Lost World, the Madagascar ride, the Sesame Street Spaghetti Space Chase, and King Julien's Beach Party-Go-Round.

The wife also took Faith to the Shrek 4-D Adventure, while the two younger ones took off for the Puss In Boots’ Giant Journey ride. The wife told me Faith kept taking off the 3D glasses, but she was generally okay with the show. Faith was probably trying to figure out why there were 3D objects in her face.

Fortunately, we covered a lot of ground in the morning and slightly after lunch, because, as it has been happening for the last few days, it poured buckets in the late afternoon.

Since we were under shelter near the New York zone, I let Isaac ride the Transformers ride three times, as a Single Rider. We didn't try the new Galactica ride though, because it was raining. That's the excuse I'm giving if anyone asks. Truth be told, this Uncle isn't that good with roller coasters anymore.

We didn't stay till late because of the heavy rain, and also Mommy had a Chinese concert to attend (I got dragged along too).

The wife and I went to the 黎费辉说唱演“自由发挥”音乐会 at the Esplanade at night. 黎费辉, or Li Fei Hui, is a veteran singer/songwriter of 28 years. The wife is a huge fan and let's just say, I have never seen that groupie side of her before.

The wife knew all the words to his songs (he has written songs for many big stars and himself in the course of his long and colourful career) and she rushed to the front of the autograph session line after the show (which ended after midnight!) just to get her CD signed and photo taken.

When we reached home, we realized we didn't have a CD player in the house anymore. All our music are digital files or streaming. Talk about retro tech, this CD stuff.

My job at the concert was to accompany her and take the photos. I did enjoy Li Fei Hui's banter, his stories and his music though. Eh, Limpeh also listen Chinese music one ok?

Hello

Yesterday, at home…

Me: "Joy, is that you pooping in my bedroom toilet?"

Youngest daughter (sings): "Hello from the other side…"

We then proceeded to sing the rest of the song, including a line that went "I'm sorry I have to pangsaaaaai".

I wonder where she gets that dorky sense of humour from.

In other news, last night I was texting the wife on the way home from work. I boarded the bus and there she was. We are, like, fated to be together. Hashtag Romance.

The browns and Company go to Western Australia

Greetings from Perth!

After a spell at Margaret River, our three families drove back to Perth itself. From wide open spaces to a cityscape. The weather is warmer here than down south but it's still pleasant because it's not humid like Singapore.

Down south of Perth, where we spent four days, we visited the Ngilgi Caves, Busselton Jetty (longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere and where an Iron Man would be held end this week) and some sheep shearing and animal petting farms.

I would also like to add that I think Australian coffee tastes very good. No wonder Starbucks died a tragic death here. Why would you drink inferior American coffee if you have Aussie coffee?

Pro travel tip: Never let the wives enter a supermarket. They won't come out until they've bought everything.

That said, I am pleased the wife was wise enough to buy bread and scones yesterday when we drove past Bunbury or we wouldn't have any breakfast this morning.

The balcony where we are staying is huge and overlooks the city. So we have decided to do what we did in Yallingup and have breakfast outside. Very lifestyle hor?

We haven't decided where we are heading next, probably Fremantle. So far, we've done the play-it-by-ear style of travel and it's working out nicely. Sometimes it's nice just to drive around and discover stuff, like the sheep shearing farm we found near our Yallingup place. And the countless wineries we stumbled on.

You can take a rock and throw it in the Margaret River region and hit two or more wineries.

Not that we're complaining, of course. Mmmm, wineries.