They say Mondays give you the blues as you find yourself having to wake up early (after two mornings of lazing around at home for most of us) and drag your sorry feet to work/school/become the mother for the family, etc).
And Fridays are so wonderful we even have a food chain that is named Thank God It's Friday (TGIF), cos the weekend's here.
My question is.. how about Hump Day? This is a lesser known day compared to Sunday/Friday and Monday or even Saturday night where people are supposed to be partying. Wednesday is supposed to be Hump Day as it is the middle of the week. So then that is true if the week starts on a Sunday.. but for half of the world (a generalisation) we learn that Monday is the first day of the week! So Thursday is another Hump Day for some as well?
I remember a very old rhyme (obviously localised or borrowed from the old British school system) back when I was 7 or 8 in school (I only remember the first line and last line vividly and the rest are kinda blurry but the meaning is there):
Sulaiman Effendi was born on Monday (see, this is the first day of the rhyme!)
went to school on Tuesday
first worked on Wednesday
married on Thursday
became a father on Friday
has a grandchild on Saturday
Died on Sunday.
This is the story of Sulaiman Effendi.
My English teacher was Mr Abu Bakar (his youngest son, Saiful was my classmate for 6 years in primary school and we reconnected through FB).
We would greet him in a sing-song voice in unison - 'Good Morning Mister Abu Bakar'.. and he would look so polished with well-combed wavy hair and walk in. He used to have this whole brown paper (parchment paper, I think), tied up with a wooden 'clip' that he would flip so to the song/rhyme of the day so that he can save up on chalk and writing energy on the blackboard, back when 'computer' was a luxury.. heck, I only literally 'touched' a computer for a month in 1992 when I was completing primary school! It was about RM25 just for the 'computer lessons' where whatever I learned are mostly obsolete now.. there wasn't any mouse back then! lol
My hubby has no recollection of the poems and rhymes I learned back in primary school and almost all of the songs I learned back in school, except for the common one - our Malaysian national anthem - Negaraku.. lol.
Maybe it's the different school systems hubby and I were in. He was in a vernacular school with Chinese as the main medium, English and Bahasa Malaysia (Malay language) are secondary - for me - it was a government-aided Catholic mission school with English and Malay being given equal emphasis, thanks to the Franciscan sister who was the headmistress back then, Sis. Odelia Ngui.
I remember Wednesday was English day for most of my primary school life and we had to be fined RM0.20 (which was big money back then for us school kids!) if we are caught speaking Malay on that particular day as it was English day!
So my only grievance which is my biggest loss is I'm half-Chinese-illiterate, I can speak it with no problem, but I painstakingly had to memorise the characters as I had no formal education in Chinese except for the occasional on-and-off-tuition classes now and then. It was very useful when I entered the job market and I felt crippled by my lack of Chinese education. :(
So for parents out there, especially if you're Chinese out of China, send your kids to at least SIX years of Chinese education (primary school)! One extra language is definitely worth it! The same goes to other additional languages as well!
How do you say Hump Day in Mandarin/Chinese? I have no idea?!?
Just a random thought! :)
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