I'll get by, October.

When I was a kid growing up, the general consensus among my elders were clear.  If you send your daughter to a school where the medium of instruction is English, your daughter will turn "wild". They'll emulate the ways of the West. (Western girls were the embodiment of immorality.They did everything bad that'll make a jaded woman like my Ma blush.)   I was the only girl in the family tree (that includes cousins at my level ) who was sent to such a school.  I never did find out why there was a break with precedent. My Ma watched me to see if I was going to turn bad.. Heck, I watched myself to see when I was about to turn bad.

Chinese medium schools at the time (I don't know if it still is) were governed by Confucian principles. Students were taught about filial piety, respecting your elders, stuffs like that. Does the medium of instruction influence morality?  I call that a whole load of crap; ideas conceived by racial zealots to ensure that we keep within the perimeter of our origins.  I've never understood all that ruckus with the Dong Zong protests anyway.  What irks me more are Chinese idealist pointing fingers at some of us who can't speak decent Mandarin.  They accused some of us of belittling our mother tongues, our ancestral language like it was the mother of all sins.

My elders used to look at me, shake their heads mournfully and say "If you send your children to an English medium school they'll turn out like her.  Look at her, straight as a lace with not a shred of guile. How will she survive in this world?"

That was a tall order but survive this world I did, by calling a spade, a spade.  I never did pick up the art of not saying what you meant, and not meaning what you said, which was from their angle, paramount in the grander scheme of things.

Okay, end of rant.

Big day tomorrow. Blood test followed by fourth chemo on the following day.  I have reasons to bitch about anything, so sue me!