Monthly Archives: April 2018

All school year long, Nyan and his classmates have been building “gratitude journals.” It’s simply where the kids write down things they are grateful for. It’s a fantastic exercise, a good and creative way for these kids to remember how lucky they are. It’s also a nice way to get some insight into what’s going on in their heads.

In the case of Nyan’s gratitude journal, there aren’t too many surprises, but it’s still lovely to see. Let’s take a look at what he’s been grateful for since August. Some of the spelling is rather, uh, challenging, so we’ll provide translations — plus any necessary context — as needed.

(Be sure to admire his drawings!)

Self explanatory. Remember Monster Jam? Nyan does.

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“I am grateful because I am going to see a visitor and she is an animal scientist.” Written just before an old college friend of Mommy, Jules, came to stay with us for a few days. She’s a biologist who does a lot of work with tigers and other big cats down in the Indonesian rain forest. Nyan was very excited that she was coming.

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“I am grateful for going to abacus grade because I [something] one paper.” Not sure what this means, and Nyan can’t remember. But it’s a reference to his abacus grading last August.

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“I am grateful for house challenge day because I got to play.”  At his school, students are divided into one of three “houses” — sort of like homerooms. Nyan is in Sentosa. Every so often, they have a day of House Challenges where the houses compete against each other. Apparently Nyan likes it.

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“I am grateful for my daddy because he brought me to Telunas.” A reference to the family vacation to Telenus Beach Resort last August (here). Daddy organized it, yes, but Mommy “brought” Nyan there just as much, if not more, as did Daddy.

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“I am grateful for my holidays because I get to see my Grandma and my Grandpa.”  Also pretty self explanatory. (Fantastic drawing of Singapore’s Changi Airport!)

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Also self explanatory 🙂

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“I am grateful for a type of old military plane. Because I got to take a tour inside the plane.”  This, Nyan tells us, refers to a tour he took of a B-29 bomber at the Cedar Rapids airport, in Iowa. The thing is, that was in summer 2015. Somehow he remembered it two and a half years later?? Gotta be; he says the plane was in Chicago, but we haven’t toured any airplanes in Chicago. So yeah. Guess he really enjoyed that tour!

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“I am grateful for my school holidays because I get to go to my old school.” During school breaks in his first half-year at Chatsworth, we would sometimes take him back to his old school, MMI, for the day. He loved it, because he got to see his old pals – and come in as a returning hero. We don’t do that any more, sadly, since all his friends have moved on to other schools.

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This was from UN Day at school (see here). We’re not sure what the sticks in a jar was all about, to be honest.

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“I am grateful for the mid-term break because I got to watch videos.” We do try to limit his screen time, and he’s okay with that, most of the time, since he has books, toys, and a great imagination. But he does love to just veg out with a video from time to time.

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He loves Jayden, and he loves sleepovers with Jayden.

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He may complain about it sometimes, but he does like taekwondo. This just proves it.

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“I am grateful for my Daddy because he gave me a computer part.” We were taking an old laptop in for recycling recently. Daddy took out the old hard drive, for security purposes, and before he was able to physically destroy it, Nyan begged for it. So, he got it. It’s now a key part of his toy chest.

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“I am grateful for a Christmas present.” Self explanatory. The drawing is a little blue Lego robot that Santa brought him.

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Finally: he wrote this after our flight home from the US, where we got upgraded to business class. Nyan was obviously very happy about that.