0703040700 Saturday Morning Cartoons

The sunscreen song says that the real problems in life are "apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday" - we received a letter from the school in Hong Kong. The enrollment papers for my daughter and son included an innocent looking statement that took us by surprise. It was one sentence that could de-rail the entire train to Hong Kong. It calmly said: "Please note that [your son] will be required to sit a pre-entry test; would you please advise when he will be in Hong Kong so we can make the necessary arrangements". I thought to myself, "What do they want him to do?" What if he doesn't get in to this amazing expensive school? Surely the whole move to Hong Kong does not depend on the ability of my 10 year old son to multiply 3-digit numbers? We had better make sure that he knows how. Actions stations. My dear wife, who is, as a matter of fact, not just my biased personal opinion, a world class teacher, started our son on a fast track to put our son comfortably in the acceptable range of the strict and foreign entry requirements of Hong Kong's finest private school. He is smart, bright, imaginative, and has the attention span of a typical 10 year-old that is bought up on Saturday morning cartoons. The entry test goes for two hours.
My dear wife, the world class teacher, found a CD with the multiplication tables sung in a variety of styles including a hip-hop version of the three times table - we then bought our son his own mp3 player. The first practical test of his multiplication tables came when he asked me how may songs can it hold.

"Well, you can work this out, a song is about 5 meg and there is about 500 meg available - so the question would be - how many fives in 500?" There was a slight pause as he wondered if this was a trick question, could it be this easy? His answer was deliberate, not with a question mark or as a question itself. He said with confidence "One Hundred".

We are going to Hong Kong and he will have a new MP3 player to listen to on the plane.

Saturday morning - clean up the yard.
Saturday morning was spent with number two son shoveling rocks. My dear wife bought a tipper load of river rocks and had them dumped in the driveway. Our simple task was to put each rock in a nicer place. When a rock would roll away, we would pretend to be in Hogan's Heros or Hitch Hiker's Guide and when we captured the escapee We said things like: - I found another one trying to escape! Ahh well done number one - take it prisoner and we'll make an example of it later...

- we then put it aside from the others rocks while we decided on its fate.

Before and After:















We now have a new family saying - "This is harder than raking rocks."

Online names are used.
references

The Sunscreen Song. : http://www.bondon.com/sunscreen_song.html