Organic-Ally

This date was etched on my mind: 4th August 2005. It wasn’t the birthday, wedding anniversary, death anniversary, party, etc. of anybody I know. It was the day I received my first Christmas shopping catalogue for the year. August? Some of us haven’t even tasted summer weather! In the event that I do return to academia (when my son is happy for me to work outside the home), I plan to carve out my own sub-discipline in anthropology. I would like to establish ‘anthropology of junk’ as a must-have in any decent anthropology department. I can picture it now at my funeral: friends and colleagues would say, ‘Siew Peng will be forever remembered for her rubbish.’ Paper, plastic, food, music, toys, gadgets, consumer goods, why is there so much of what we don’t need around us? Look in some shopping catalogues and you would find: tea bag squeezer, and used tea bag holder. Fact is I actually had to order one of these for uhm, mother-in-law. She was on her way to getting a tea bag holder when I off...

Writing in the Times recently, Mary Ann Sieghart praised the use of buses to ferry children to and from school. Not only are they more environmentally-friendly, it could – potentially – mean that children might think about applying to schools more suited to their needs even when they are further away. I have a particular aversion to doing the school run by car. I have the unusual experience of being ‘taxi-ed’ to and from my primary school. Being the youngest of six children, the only school that my parents could get me into without the hassle of balloting and endless finger-biting, etc, was the school my older siblings went to, on the basis of sibling connections. However, while we used to live about a minute’s walk from the school, my family had to move several miles away before I started school. So father had to arrange for a private taxi to ferry me to and from school. The first driver proved to be unreliable and father stepped in for the rest of the year, but this was too much of ...

It’s the end of an era at the nursery my son attended as a three-year-old. Myrna, who’s been running that school for 35 years, has finally decided to retire. From September 2005, it becomes part of – with some irony – the nursery section of the school my son currently goes to. Myrna is another of my major role models of the recycling habit. She’s been able to run her school on extremely low overheads partly by being able to engage all the parents in recycling. Parents are asked to collect milk bottle tops, cereal boxes, colourful card, yoghurt pots, bits of fabric, egg cartons, etc for use in craftwork. Apart from paints, pens and glue, everything that is used at the school seems to be recycled, even address labels and name badges. Milk and drink bottle tops are used in sorting exercises and in craft activities. Someone drills holes in them and children thread these onto string to make their models. Cereal boxes are cut into various animal shapes for the younger children to learn gluei...