Stories of KK

The one thing KK wants to do in KL is to visit the soaring Petronas Twin Towers, which we are also staying right next to. He views the construction videos and observes the sides of the tower with an engineer’s eye. * Who watches these videos? KK! * He is most fascinated by the thick struts which hold up the sky bridge (which is not fixed to the sides of the two towers. It's kind of flexible) * There's the sky bridge and the huge diagonal struts on either side

The other day KK’s sister says to him: Why do you keep taking all these exams if you keep failing? Because he still is, failing. New sorts of exams. KK says, just take  lor . Sooner or later I’ll pass. And he does. Then it strikes me that no one really knows how many times you’ve tried. You could have failed 10 times but once you get it, you put it up on your resume and it’s there, another light for your professional Christmas tree, for life.  It’s something new to me, I who won’t do anything if I think I’ll fail. I never gather any baubles for my professional Christmas tree. I hope KK’s attitude is one which will rub off on the kids. He never talks about it, but you know, he's their role-model and all. The other day we splurge on a nice meal at Etna Italian Restaurant (its the sort of place where waiters come up to you to recite the menu) because KK has gotten new lights. After failing once and a lot of grief, he’s finally become a Qualified Erosion Control Professional. Whic...

We hop along to check out KK’s ‘freelance’ gig to see where he disappears to every Saturday.  It’s a container in a corner of Singapore most people have never seen. * The ubiquitous site stray It reminds me of when he was in another container doing Gardens by the Bay, and we used to visit every so often (The Gardens container was much nicer though, it had faux wood floors). This time, he’s helping to build a train depot out in Mandai. A depot is a place where the trains park and get their health checks when they’re not running. The room – a white-walled square with a table and two chairs – is dreadfully blah and the girls and I chomp at the bit to do it up. Flowers? Soft toys? Photos? KK puts us down: Please lah . Don’t. Otherwise, they all head toward the vending machine as the most attractive thing onsite.

So what if KK failed so many papers he had to be retained a year in NTU? He’s very slowly but surely moved, step by step, toward his dream. The Masters, the Professional Engineer's certification, and now the business – kkgeo (short for KK Geotechnical) – which we registered in July last year, but which only sort of went ‘live’ in March (bank account, email domain) when a worthy opportunity came along for him to take on freelance work. * Here's the logo again, for good measure Right now he has a foot in two boats. There’s kkgeo, but his old company still wants him. So he splits, four days with his employer, and two days for his own stuff. I, too, have the privilege of being “Administrative Support, KK Geo Consulting” (the ‘administrative support’ part really tickles his funny bone). I have come full circle from the days I used to be his secretary in a committee to organize joint hall orientation activities in NTU. We were 19 and 23. Now we’re 40 and 44. Then it was just writing...

He’s really, really got it. The exam, passed on the fourth painful attempt, followed by the interview, and then the news that KK now qualifies as Er. (short for Engineer) Loh. All we really needed was the official statement and the pay raise (not yet), right. But what a big unexpectedly lavish event it was. It’s like a freaking convocation. How this country loves its engineers! Today, professional engineers, old and new, congregate at the Jubilee Hall in the Gardens by the Bay flower dome (it’s the event hall with a galaxy of balls on the ceiling) for the Professional Engineers Board Day of Dedication. There’s a newspaper supplement! A Minister who hands out the thick parchment scrolls to all the ‘new’ Ers! A very serious swearing-in ceremony in which all the ERs read aloud a 106-word pledge  (I counted) to “dedicate my service to the development of society…”! Everyone wears ties! (KK struggles to follow the Youtube instructions on his phone. I, well-versed in tying RGS school ties...

I had a good feeling, a really good one. I ran downstairs, two steps at a time, to collect the mail, something I only do once a month if I can be bothered. There, I saw the magic red words: Professional Engineers Board. These are the words I have seen, annually, for the past four years. I bounded upstairs, waved the letter around, KK’s eyes widened and he retreated straight to the kitchen. I couldn’t bear it either. I cut the letter open and passed it to Day who had just come out of the shower with the words: Don’t say anything, Day, don’t say anything! Day, green bath towel wrapped around his wet body, unfolded the two sheets. He read. And read. Jo joined in the letter party. She read and read. I finally mustered the courage to whisper: Did Papa pass or fail? Both looked up. “I don’t know,” both said. I grabbed it. I still couldn’t bring myself to read it. I got up and went into the kitchen. I handed KK the letter. He took it and stared. He looked at me. Only then I read. Oh my God. W...

This is KK’s fourth try now, to try and cross the Professional Engineering hurdle. It's an annual ritual that has become familiar to me and the kids. It’s the only time in the year when we head downtown on a working weekday evening to the SMU campus, and wait for papa to come out with a whole lot of other men who are similarly dragging textbook-filled trolley bags around. He, however, seems to be the only candidate with a posse of one big and three small cheerleaders madly jumping outside the door to try and see him through the glass slit. * KK in white at the back The lead-up to the big event has also been the same for four years: The nightly studying which starts several months before, his overcast mien on his birthday (which always takes place a few weeks before the exam) and my having to take over all household duties for a while. Also similar every year is the same strange mix of relief and despondency as he walks out of the exam hall and sighs. What I have figured, if I could...

It was a long-awaited moment: KK finally allows us to step into his office.  I have this fixation with seeing his workspace. Ever since he started his first job I have photographed all his workspaces, from dingy containers with mangy dogs to big holes in the ground, and this is no different. Only he never allowed entry because this office is “corporate”.  This time, the only reason we were permitted was because he was working on a Saturday (first time I think), and there is no one around to see how unprofessional he is, letting his family paw all over his work things.  The kids had a field day, as expected. While Day and Jo fought over a canned drink, Lu took her time. Sitting at KK’s table, which was unbelievable. There was only space for a calculator and an empty rectangle where his laptop was supposed to sit.      Running along the carpeted corridors.      We take silly pictures. We miss the old GB site  though. I think that workspace...

KK walked out of his examination hall at the SMU this evening at 5pm, lugging three heavy bags bulging with textbooks, face downcast. “I think I may have to try again next year,” he said. Then he brightened: “But when I see the kids, I forget all of that.”    * Just out of the exam hall   Good thing, then, that me and the kids were there to form the Finish-Exam party. For a man who is so un-diligent and so un-academic and who flunked all his uni papers, KK seems to have done hell of a lot of studying in the last 15 years. The Masters was over.  Now it’s the Professional Engineering certification.  A badge of honour bestowed only on a select few in Singapore - particularly in the wake of the Nicoll Highway collapse when the Government made it really hard for anyone to get that certificate - this is KK’s second attempt.  Exams are offered only once a year. It costs $450. He took a week off work to study. He said it felt like the result would be exactly the sa...

Driving over the Benjamin Sheare’s bridge towards the city, the Singapore Flyer looms up on the left. Far in the distance beyond the sea is what looks like a dam under construction – the Marina Barrage – and that’s just about where we tucked ourselves to enjoy the National Day fireworks.  That’s where KK works, day after day, stomping all over the reclaimed land and inspecting the soil to make sure it can hold up the spectacular Gardens By The Bay. Highlights of NDP 2008:     Trekking across slippery hoarding boards, drains filled with muddy brown water and climbing up huge gunny-sack covered earth mounds (technically called “surcharge fills” and how I know is because I vetted his report) to get a better view.    With both of us carrying one child and one umbrella each (plus I had a camera and a bag of Ruffles chips) I am seized with joy at our foolhardiness. Day scampers happily alongside, digging in for handfuls of Ruffles every few metres. Dee hates roughing-...

We’ve been holding our breaths: Did KK fail any of his exams? Does he get his Masters or not? Will we have to (Gasp! Nooooo!) return to Australia for him to study for more credits?  Good news good news good news! Here are his results:  PASSED: Six (3 high distinctions, 1 distinction, 1 credit, 1 pass) FAILED: None   Even better than  last semester!   He also had the (in my opinion) rather dubious honour of scoring a perfect 100 for one of his papers. He asked: “Huh? How come like that?” but of course, whoever looked a gift horse in the mouth?  All that’s pending is the actual awarding of the Masters degree. Good thing he cleared everything; he had dumped all his notes in Sydney, didn’t take a page back.   

Some people would call us plain stupid. That’s the amount of monthly salary KK is giving up - the difference between one job offer and another - because he aspires to get behind an office desk and draw up building designs for the first time in his life, instead of getting all hot and sweaty on a work site which he's done for 10 years.  In a nutshell, his Masters (if it comes through and it should) has finally opened the door for him to join a design consultancy and with a year or two of designs under his belt, he will then be able to try and become a certified Professional Engineer which is, I gather, the top echelon of the profession and which is where I hope he will finally make big bucks to feed us all.  Come Monday he dons his spiffy new work shirts and heads off to an air-conditioned building somewhere in Thomson to work, for the first time in his life, as a Design Engineer.    God bless, in the last three weeks since we returned he hasn't even had to browse thr...

Tomorrow is KK’s sixth and last exam: Engineering Geology. He hopes it’s the last time in his life he ever touches anything academic. He says exactly the same thing this semester as he did last year: As a father, he can no longer be a student. Not a full-time, full fee-paying one anyway. Instead of the reverence which most students would treat their reference books, his textbook is vandalized with picures of Day and Dee, and Day’s scribbles.    But anyway, I suspect the sea of red makes him happier than the text. One of Day’s monsters.    Results come out a week after our return to Singapore.

I doubt if I would be able to do what KK is doing now: hit the books after leaving academia for 10 years.  It doesn’t help that by his own reckoning, he hasn’t actually studied hard for closer to 20 years. The last time he actually paid due diligence to his books was during his Chinese High days, after which his heart was set on having fun.  Happily, he’s discovered all there is to discover, and nothing is going to sway him now. He swots morning to night, sitting at the dining table (no study table unfortunately), obediently eating whatever I manage to churn out from the kitchen.  The tremendous amount of pressure he feels certainly helps: When he looks up from his books, I can imagine he feels fully responsible for dragging his entire family along with him and that he had better score damn well to justify the opportunity cost. If I were him, I’d be stressed out of my head. I’m glad I’m not the one studying but I'm glad he took up the challenge.

We are all here in Sydney because my husband's studying. But precisely WHAT is he studying? Aha. I don't think I've mentioned this. He's not a man of airy-fairy words, ideas and debate. Neither is he a man of numbers, business or accounts. Nope. He's a man who is down-to-earth and grounded in more ways that one. He studies soil, rocks and structures. As boring as it may sound to others, he finds it tremendously interesting. What he says is: Everything starts from the ground. True, true. This past week, a particular module he is studying has brought him on field trips to rather interesting sites. He goes to school, and like an excursion, a bus takes him and his classmates on hour-long journeys to the sites. This is a pit which goes down for a hundred metres. Problem is, Australia's rocks are very different from Singapore's rock, he's never seen any of it before, and he's struggling with that. A couple of days, he came back from school with his head in...

This is my first-ever blog posting in Capital Letters and that's because it's something that is so, so important.  Essentially, whole family is going to Sydney in a few months time with toddler and newborn babe in tow, and all four of us are going to live on nothing but the meagre savings of a lowly paid engineer and a stay-home mom. (savings are also going to pay for hubby's astronomical school fees) For over a year.   What an adventure eh! God knows, this has been a long time coming. Since KK graduated a decade ago he's been raring to get his Masters degree in civil engineering, but the local unis flatly rejected him year after year and the last straw was when my nasty letter to a uni dean, asking exactly what was the problem with KK, was answered in a most pragmatic and cold manner: With such awful university grades (lots of Fs), albeit from 10 years ago, the most brilliant job record would never get him into the uni. Fine. That's that for never-give-ch...