Jay Golf Updates

Date:  June 27, 2015

This is what I told my son, Jay.

1) "I know you like sport, but you don’t have to be good in every one of them."  So that you do not create any pressure for him.  He can learn & play whatever sports he likes.

2) Jay has been exposed to many different sports.  But mostly, I told him is for fitness purpose.  I want a child to be very active in sport so that he understands doing sports will do good thing to his health.

3) Golf has been Jay’s favourite sport.  It is a game that the ball does not move.  All you need to do is to hit the stationary ball at the ground.  It is challenging especially at the golf course as there are uneven ground, there will be obstacle, and you will need a little bit of Science to make it roll to places you like the golf ball to roll.

Here is some updates of his learning journey of golf….

He played a few holes to let his coach see how’s his skills.

At the moment, he can only played at the Millennium Course executive 9-hole.  He played 6 holes today because he wanted to go play with Riyandi at the Adventure Cove.  So, we actually skipped 3 holes.  Here is the hole by hole coverage to see his swing, his chips and his putts.  I enjoyed all the videos very much.  It shows how dedicated my boy towards learning to play golf the right way.  Please enjoy the videos.

Hole #1

The first hole is about 95 meter.  He no longer can use his Driver for this hole to tee off.  He has to use a hybrid to tee off about 85 meter.

The drive fly straight, and put his ball right at the edge of the green.  And the green is quite difficult as he has about 10 meter slope (quite steep) need to clear.  So, with one chip and one putt, he got a PAR on this hole.

 

Hole #2

The second hold is about 195 meter.

He uses his big Driver.  Correct stance, and correct ball position for him.  Slowly bring up the driver.

No over-swing.  Hip turned.

Swing the club.  There is a big break at the left arm.  But it’s OK.

Hip turned and let the driver turn his body.

Natural finishing position.

And he nailed it!  The drive goes straight and about 120 meter.  Big drive for an 8 year old kid (9 soon).

Very big drive.

This shall be my favourite photo for a long while.  :)

The 2nd shot he uses his hybrid.  But the ball goes to the right.

He decided to attack the green with a bunker in front of the flag.  He uses a sand wedge to make the shot.

The shot is a bit difficult for him, as he has to hit the shot from a slope going to the left.

As a result, not enough compensation, his ball goes to the left.

From there, again, he uses his sand wedge to try to bring the ball to the green.  Before he do so, let’s practise the stroke. 

Can you hear his club brushing thru the rough?  

And he make the shot.  To the left of the flag.

Left with about 20 plus feet, he putted the ball slightly over.  And then, he nailed the last putt.  

Hole #2 is a PAR 4 hole.  So, 1-2-3-4-5-6 shots.  A double boogey.

Hole #3

This hole is about 95 meter.  So, again, he will use his hybrid for this hole.

He hits the ball to the left and lie deep in the rough.

But look at his butt, his hip finishing.  He is learning the correct way of golf swing, and this will help him to have lesser injury next time.

 Coach is happy with his hips turn.  He is using his hips to deliver the ball.

Ok, he landed his ball at a slope with a deep grass.  So, coach double dare him $100 if he makes his shots on to the green.  HaHaHa… I think coach James saw his stands and knew he is going to hit into the left.  HaHaHa… And indeed, he chip the ball to the left.  But very nice solid chip.

From the edge of the green, he left with about 10-12 feet.

And he bring the ball closer to the hole.  It is a downhill.  So, he needs to control his putting strength a bit.

He nailed the hole.  It is a boogey for this hole.

Hole #4

Hole 4 is a steep uphill 100 meter hole.

Using a driver, he drives the ball to the right.  On a slope with long grass again.

He then hit the ball to the left.  Standing not the steep slope, it is hard for him to place the weight on the left foot, and then, hit the ball front.  That will throw him off balance.  But he did make the shot well.

From the left, again, is another slope.  He needs to chip the ball into the green.  And he hit the ball high up.

Here comes the difficulty putt.  It is a downhill putt.  When we tell him it is downhill, kids is like this, they immediately reduce the speed of the swing.

And they do so, in a very discrete way.  They cut the power by half.  hahahaha

If I don’t say it is a down hill he probably hit it far, but once I told him is downhill, he hit is short.  Very short.

The next hole, he miss his putt.  So, he got a double PAR for this hole.

Hole #5

This is a 196 meter PAR 4 hole.

It is a very long hole.  He drives the ball to the right.  Right side of buggy, lying on a slide slope.  Correct stance, correct swing, correct hips turn.  He hit it about 110 meter.

He is left with about 70-80 meter.  The coach asked to use a 9-Iron where he really should use a 7-Iron here.

Well, he hits it short.  And the coach thought about it, and he says he might be advising the wrong clubs just now.  hahahaha

Now, he has to hit on a slope again. 

Today is a game with lots of slope shots.

But he hits it OK.  To the left.

Just outside the green.  So, he spent 3 putts here.  A double boogey.

Hole #9

We skipped hole 6, hole 7 & hole 8.  Because Jay Jay wants to go Adventure Cove to join his friend Riyandi for water play.  So, since the coach has left, so, we skipped the three PAR-3 holes, and go straight to the last hole which is a 212 meter hole.

I reminded him about the hips turn.  And he nailed it.  The ball landed on the mark of 10 meter in front of the 100 meter marker.  So, he drives about 122 meter.  Big drive.

Then, with his trusty hybrid, he hit the second shot onto the green.

This is to show you his second shot, how far away from the pin.  Great shot Jay!

His first putt.  Miss it.  But close to the pin.

And he nailed his putt.  He score a PAR on the last hole.

He should be quite happy about this!

This is probably one of his best score I have seen so far playing so many times with him.

He has a Junior Medal game competition coming up this Sunday 2:30.  Hope it does not rain.  All the past 2 events were cancelled because of rain.

He will be competing with all these higher primary students in the group.  Let’s see how he do.

He is learning, learning fast, learning correctly.  And I think he is going to do well.

OK.  Let’s go home pick up Kay Kay and go Adventure Cove.  Well done Jay for today’s great game.

Today’s Score

=====

Hole 1 - PAR3 - 3 (PAR)

Hole 2 - PAR4 - 6 (DOUBLE BOOGEY)

Hole 3 - PAR3 - 4 (BOOGEY)

Hole 4 - PAR3 - 6 (DOUBLE PAR)

Hole 5 - PAR4 - 6 (DOUBLE BOOGEY)

Hole 6 - PAR4 - 4 (PAR)

=====

Total 6 holes

Total 21 shots - and Jay made it with 29 shots.  8 over.  Not too bad.

For a kid.

The Mighty Duct Tape Speed Tape

Date:  Jan 14, 2015

It is often mistaken as a “duct tape”.  But it looks very shinny.  

Yesterday, we came home on this Jetstar plane.  And to our surprise, we saw this!

Duct tape!

For don’t know what reason, Jetstar actually uses the duct tape to path the engine/turbine together.  Seems like it.

Indeed looks very very scary.

But we arrived home from Hong Kong to Singapore safely.

The ride is very smooth.  Should we thank the duct tape?

Today, I get the chance to search on the Internet - keyword “Jetstar duct tape” ...

And I found this video.

Source:  http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/01/watch-an-engineer-repair-a-jetstar-plane-with-gaffer-tape/

WOW!  Jetstar!!!!!!!!!  Why????? Always use duct tape to repair your airplane?

Wait now...

Let’s search “Budget Airline duct tape"

So, it is not only Jetstar.  This is EasyJet.  But they have explained why they need to use this.  It is not a duct tape.  It is called a “Speed Tape”.  It is a common thing in airlines industries.

Source:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3102312/Shocked-passenger-takes-photo-airport-worker-using-TAPE-engine-shell-easyJet-plane-moments-off.html

Tiger Airline not too bad.  Use duct tape to stick the windows back.  Make it more firm.

Source:  http://forums.vr-zone.com/chit-chatting/3232351-my-window-tiger-air-flight-hong-kong-singapore.html

Cebu Airline fix a bit minor problem using duct tape.

Source:  http://hotels-in-cebu.com/duct-tapes-on-cebu-pacific-plane/

OK.  Wait now….

Let’s try to search “Singapore Airlines duct tape"

And… Singapore Airlines also uses it.

The airlines engineers knows that they doing.

Of course they have calculated all the odds and making sure that the plane flight is safety.

Using duct tape or speed tape to repair the airplane is acceptable.

It can be used to repair boat too.

And cars too.

Something to think about.  hahahahaha

Beautiful Flowers

Went to buy Christmas Tree 2015.  And saw this pot of lovely flower at Far East Flora @ Queensway.

Jay Jay His Ozobot

Date:  Oct 8, 2015

This year, I gave Jay this birthday present.

In responding to LSL’s Smart Nation propaganda.

So, we need to teach kids how to do simple programming.

This is Ozobot.

It is a small little robot that will move.

It moves according to black lines and color coding.  You want it to move fast, you do a blue black blue black blue black line.  If you want it to turn right, make sure your line has blue-red-green in there.

It is quite cute.

It comes with these route cards to demonstrate what it can do.

You can also go to the website to download games and print it out.

At the moment, the Ozobot program is as simple as this.  You can re-program it using the Blockly app.

For kids at this age, don’t jump into that yet.

Let them understand using colour you can program the robots too.

You can make them do funny things too.  All simply by using color coding.

That is why you need the magic pen.  Or you can draw on the white board too.

You can play games from the printed sheet, and fill in the color to make it work.

Jay Jay explaining the robot.

Jay playing with his Ozobot.

He is so happy about it.

Very eager to explore too.

Happy Birthday Jay Jay!  Hope you like this present!

Jay Jay has been a very good kid for the past 1 year.  And he even not to forget to study his Chinese (daily reading and listening) on his birthday before sleep. 

That is why I top up with this.  Which I save S$88 when buying it from Malaysia.  

We finally have a Millennium Falcon at home.

Updates Chinese Composition Jay 20 9

Date:  Sep 20, 2015

We have make it a habit.

Every Saturday 2pm, while on the way to his Robotics Class, I will let Jay Jay do one passage of Chinese Composition.

It is good as we can discussed what to write, how Jay wanted to tell the story during the short 15-20 minutes ride.

And then, during the ride home, he will use the new method, IOS’s dictation to speak out and write down on the Notepad.

Through out the exercise, I discovered more on the direct translation from English to Chinese problem.

Here are some new tips that I think it is useful.

1.  I usually asked him to think about what he wanted to write and quickly do a count on words on the first 2-3 pictures.  So, he will use his fingers to start counting.  For example, he wanted to write 30 words on the first picture, and then, 20 words on the 2nd picture.  So, I teach him, once he has 50 words on the first two pictures, it is find already.  We do not need to count the 4th picture, as we know we can add more words in the last picture.  So, P3 requires to write about 80 words.  So, it has already surpass that.  This is to give him a certain confidents on how much to write.  I don’t want him to write so much because "write more wrong more "????.

2.  As this is a “tell story and write story” practise.  I am not so particular on the full stop, comma, and stuffs.  When he write it down, he knows what to do.  But on a dictation mode, usually, you do not want to pay too much attention.  You want to get the “conceptualise” of the story well.  Jay understood that well.

3.  His original sentence is “???????????????”.  I reminded him that we have to always constantly asked ourselves about the 6 W’s.  In this case, where?  So, perhaps he needs to tell people more details about where he was taking a stroll with his friend.  Is it outside the garden?  Is it inside the garden?  or is it below the garden?  or above the garden?  ???????? will be more appropriate.  The more I teach him this, the more Jay Jay grasp.  So, even during day to day conversation, I will have to watch out of this and try to remind him to be detail on describing the scene.

4.  There is nothing wrong with "??????????“.  But I have to remind him that, he has already talking about both the kids is taking the stroll.  So, by saying this again, make the sentence redundant.  So, I try to make him think, how about tell us What do they feel while they are taking the stroll and chit-chatting at the same time?  Are the boys smiling?  So, wouldn’t it be better to say "??????????, ????“.  Learning to write composition is not so easy, it needs patient.  But I believe that if you keep on doing this sort of exercise on weekly, eventually the kid will learn it some days.

5.  In his original sentence, "???????????????????????”  OK.  I have to correct him this.  He has mix up a little bit.  So, I asked him to see what other methods he can use to describe the event instead of saying “?????”.  Reason is you are describing a person do something, and the sudden usage of “I” seems awkward.  So, I suggested him to try to describe the “???” as “?????” instead of saying “?????”.

6.  I am glad that he started to use “?????????”?“??”?”????“.  All these are suggested last few weeks.  In order to put the story into timing perspective.  You cannot tell a story without a time.  When does it happen?  later?  Now? 

7.  As a conclusion, the kid has to be constantly reminded about good manner.  As for now, for good behaviour, he will put down “?????”.  Today, I want him to think about why they are “??”.  I told him in P4, you probably have to write more other than “??”.  How about saying??????????????????The story about how the two kids help the old lady to look for her purse.  This is an action of “helping people”.  Not so related to “??”.

This is what he come out of.  Not too bad.  I slowly can see the improvement.

As you can see in the first picture, there are some other words that he choose not to use.  

But I think he have to start exposing himself to describing the feeling, describing what the facial expression.

Like ????????????????

???????????????????? 

?????????????????

And of course, after this, I will usually let him read what the model answer is from the book.  Those are really good, but I do not expect him to learn those.

I only wanted him to learn the correct way to speak, to describe and to write down.

So far, I am very very excited and happy about his progress.

During the car ride home, he told me that he is very happy about what he has written.  And he thank me.

And he said, he wanted to get an “A” on his SA2 paper 1.  Instead of getting a “C” as in SA1.

I told him, don’t put too high the bar, one step at a time.  I am happy if he gets an “B”.

I feel that he has grown up a lot.

???????

To my friends who has kids.  I speak Chinese at home too.  But somehow the kids has evolve to make English their first language.  We cannot change that.  So, we shall need to put in more efforts to counter that effect.  We sometimes have to put in a lot a lot of efforts into teaching Jay and Kay how to speak Chinese at home, and how to speak correctly.  I shared all these because I found it very useful when teaching both Jay and Kay.  This year, I did not asked Jay do any assessment book.  I only teach him using flash cards, listen and reading out the text book, and using dictation to conceptualise and write down the composition.  And these are the basic root they need the most.  It is the confident they need to find.  So, using these easy methods, I feel that we have successfully make Jay Jay found his confident in this Chinese language.  And the more he learned, the more he wanted to learn.  Good luck!

Artichoke Casse Croute

Date:  Jul 27, 2015

My In-laws were in town last week.  So, I brought them downstairs for french food. 

These are the artichokes from France. 

And this is our dish.  Chef Patrick steam the artichoke.  And present it on the plate like this.

This is after steaming it for close to 1-hour I believe.  Of course, we called and ask him to steam it before we arrive. 

Of course, he showed us how to eat it.

So, you peel one leaf by one leaf out from the Artichoke.

And you only eat the bottom part.  It kind of taste like those sweet potato texture.  

So, what you do, is to put this in your mouth, use your teeth and push the “meat” into your mouth.

That is the the only part that is edible.

My father in law seems happy eating this.  He had never eaten this before.  Neither do us.

After you peeled, it looks like this at the bottom.

Patrick said call him when we finished all the leaf out side.  

“Patrick!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Patrick came out, bring this piece of left over artichoke into the kitchen.

Blink blink!

5-minutes later.

He brought this out.  He peeled the flowers, and decorate nicely onto the plate, and there are more stuff to eat.  This is the second course followed after we eaten the leaves.

You can lift up the top part.  And there you go.  More stuff to eat.

Now French chef also do like Chinese chefs, decorate their dish like a lotus flower.  hahahaha

Very nicely presented.

You can’t eat the flower thou...

Of course, we eat other food.  The smoke herrings is nice.

The kids always love his creamy mushroom pasta.

Teo Chew style cold dish - the pig head meat.

Mutton...

Rabbit.

Nice wine too… $48 wine.  Good value.

This is where I eat.  Just downstairs at the club house.