I Love the Blue Sky

Long Time No Blog

2011-10-07T01:59:00.001+08:00

It's been a while since my last post. I'm merely back just to try blogging on my iPhone. Heh. Seems easy as pie.

I'll be back again some day. Good night, world! :)

Photographs From USA-Mexico Trip

2010-03-05T19:20:00.019+08:00

I know this is terribly delayed, but here are the highlights from my trip to USA and Mexico in December 2009 and January 2010. The pictures were taken from both Cheryl's and my cameras and are uploaded according to chronological order. Enjoy! :D

23 December 2009

Christmas Eve 2009

Christmas Day 2009

Boxing Day 2009

27 December 2009

We didn't take any photos for 3 days - from 28 to 30 December. It was shopping at Woodbury's Factory Outlet on the 28th. I think I rested in the apartment on either 29th or 30th because I didn't feel very well while it was more shopping on the other day.

31 December 2009

New Year's Day 2010

2-7 January 2010
We headed off to Riviera Maya, Mexico for warmer temperatures and the Caribbean Sea!

8 January 2010
We were back in freezing New York.

9 January 2010

10 January 2010
My last day in NY. We had my last meal at Kitchenette, which served really awesome breakfast!

It was certainly a trip to remember. Despite being ill, I had a lot of fun - especially in Mexico. I'm missing New York and Playa Del Carmen so much!!!!!

A Brief Update

2010-03-01T21:36:00.004+08:00

I attended my first class of the semester today. It was Sociolinguistics and Language Learning (henceforth known as SLL). Tim is taking us for this subject. I'm feeling quite apprehensive about this subject because it looks really tough. I'm not looking forward to the readings at all. :\

Anyway, JM came and left. Our GOR road trip was really awesome. Driving along the coastline was a great challenge especially when the road was winding. I got to cruise along the highway at 120-140 km per hour too. That was a totally cool experience. We had some problems getting back to the city and got lost for a while. It wasn't that bad actually. We were both quite calm and cool and managed to navigate our way around. Moral of the story: never lose your cool when you're lost! ;)

We had dinner with Shannon at Madame Sou Sou on Brunswick Street. I had bruschetta for starters. It was the most amazing bruschetta I'd ever eaten! The bread was warm and crisp and soft at the same time and the mushroom was to die for! I enjoyed my main course - duck confit. The meat wasn't tough to chew and was succulent. I really enjoyed my dinner there. :) Thanks to Shannon for recommending the place and bringing us there!

Well, I'll probably post the photos up much later, depending on when JM sends me the ones in her camera. Meanwhile, I'm still in the midst of sorting out the photos from my USA-Mexico trip. ;P

A Piece Of Good News

2010-02-19T21:26:00.003+08:00

It seems that JM is able to come Melbourne after all! :D This is really fantastic news! I can't wait for her to come and then we could go visit places together.

Oh yes, we'll be going to Great Ocean Road! I'm really looking forward to this. It'll be my first time driving after 7-8 months of having not driven. I hope my driving skill hasn't gone all rusty. I'm feeling a little nervous actually because I'm totally unfamiliar with the roads and rules in Melbourne city. Heh. How brave, eh?

Countdown: 4 days to JM's arrival! :D

Finally!

2010-02-15T14:10:00.004+08:00

The Internet connection in my apartment is finally up and running. It's been a terrible two weeks. I could only watch a lot of K-dramas and read in my apartment. So, it kinda forced me to go out practically everyday. Still, after barely a week without the Internet, I signed up for mobile Internet. I had to check my emails and it's quite a hassle to go to the university just to do that.

Well, I've been back for a little over two weeks and boredom is finally setting in. I should start on gym soon. I've become such a bummer! I sleep late, watching my K-dramas and I wake up late. I usually go out in the afternoon - to do a little grocery-shopping or just grab lunch from QVM. Speaking of which, have I mentioned that I absolutely adore the fish and chips snack pack at the QVM foodcourt? Yep, I've been eating quite a lot of it. :)~

Oh yes, this is also the first time I'm not celebrating CNY. I went town briefly and saw all the lion dances that was along Little Bourke. Wish I had brought along my camera. Pity.

Anyway, here's wishing one and all: A Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Tiger Year! God bless!

Photograph Update

2010-01-30T22:01:00.008+08:00

Here are some pictures of my time in Singapore, post-USA-Mexico trip.

Brunch with JM at The Line, Shangri-la Hotel

A frisky squirrel scooting around, scavenging for food at a nearby table

Brunch with Vanessa and her little princess Rachel at La Verde, Botanical Gardens

Happy hour at Morton's, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, with PC, Shannon and Don

We went Chomp Chomp after that for more food. Hehs.

That's all for now. Ciao! :)

Shopping Spree

2010-01-29T21:38:00.003+08:00

I was in the mood to splurge today and went shopping, buying quite a few clothes from Espirit. I know. I shouldn't be buying clothes from a shop which can be easily found in Singapore. But, oh well, it's too late.

I decided to watch Avatar on my own too - in 3D. By the end of the show, I could feel a very bad headache was coming. I think it was the 3D effect. Still, I enjoyed the movie a lot. It really is one of the better movies around.

I wonder what I can do tomorrow. It feels really weird not to have anything to do but just bum around. No marking to do, no assignments to complete. This has got to be the best and longest vacation I've ever had! xD

Back In Melbourne

2010-01-28T13:15:00.001+08:00

Alrighty, so I'm back in Melbourne. I arrived on the first flight and cleared the customs and collected my luggage in less than an hour! So different from when I first arrived last July.

Anyways, I had to wait for my transport for quite a while. By the time I got back to my apartment, it was about 8.30 am. I took about 2 hours to clean up the apartment and then did some unpacking. There was no food at all, so it was grocery-shopping at Victoria Market, henceforth known as QVM. :P

I love grocery-shopping in Melbourne. It's the whole idea of planning what to cook and eat, without having to waste any food. I'm always lugging three to four bagsful of items back to my apartment. It's also one way I exercise. Hehs. I will miss this once I return to Singapore.

Well, it's summer now, but it doesn't feel that hot. I was shivering like jelly when I stepped out of the airport this morning. I suppose it'll get hotter in the afternoon.

Speaking of temperatures, I just realised I've been exposed to the various weathers and seasons of four countries the past few weeks! Singapore - cool and wet; New York, USA - freezing winter; Playa Del Carmen, Riviera Maya, Mexico - generally cool; and Melbourne, Australia - hot summer. How cool is that! :D

Jet Lag

2010-01-15T11:11:00.001+08:00

I'm back from US! It was a good trip. I shopped, ate, watched Broadway musicals and a ballet and walked a lot. Haha... Mexico was fantastic, mainly because I loved the weather. It was very pleasant - pretty sunny in the day with breeze though it got quite chilly at night. It didn't help that I was ill too. I must have caught the flu bug on my way to US because I developed a sorethroat on my first day in US.

I'll probably upload all the photos another time. I'm suffering from jet lag now and I think I'll take about a week to turn back my biological clock. I'm sleeping at 3 or 4 am now and waking up near noon time. Bestie flew back to Singapore today and we're supposed to meet tomorrow for breakfast at Shangri-la. I sure hope I can wake up by 7.30 am!

It's going to be an extremely busy next week. I'll be out everyday meeting my favourite people before I leave for Melbourne on 27 Jan in the evening.

Hm, I think I'm going to try my darnest not to nap this afternoon so that I can sleep early tonight and wake up on time. :)

Bored

2009-12-22T07:08:00.001+08:00

I'm at Beijing International Airport at the moment, waiting for my flight to New York. It's cold and boring here. I think nothing beats our Changi International Airport. There are so many cafes and eateries around. They have them here at the airport's terminal 3 as well but fewer, I think.

The whole terminal feels like a ghost town from where I'm sitting. There's a family of Caucasians? Europeans? playing at a mock playground in front of me. The two golden-haired children are lovely. I'm soooooo tempted to snap a photo of them sliding down the slide face-down as they attempt to defy gravity by struggling up the slope. LOL.

The kids sound like they're speaking French. I'm too far away to identify the language.

I've been listening to the music the airport's playing. I think CD is running its third or fourth play now. Yawn.

I hope there'll be no flight delay. I'm so bored I could die. The Internet access is only for a little over 2.5 hours, but my netbook battery can last about 2 hours before it goes flat.

I have no access to Facebook and Twitter here. What terrible misery! *glances at the time* I still have about 2.5 hours to kill before boarding time. Sigh.

A Lazy Time At Home

2009-12-06T10:33:00.006+08:00

Home sweet home! Well, not exactly that sweet but, well, I did miss my room. Ironically, I got a stiff neck from sleeping on my own bed the first night! I must admit, the pillows and bed in my Melbourne apartment are of better quality. But, I miss looking out of the window and being able to see the sky, greenery and everything else. My apartment in Melbourne doesn't offer that because of this huge opaque glass panel which blocks off whatever view I might have (except for the sky) at the window-balcony.

I haven't been doing very much since my return three days ago. I took my H1N1 jab at my cousin's clinic on Friday evening. He looked about the same but has more white hair now at the sides. After that, I met up with Mag for dinner instead of the original timing due to an unforeseen circumstance. We had years of catching up to do since we hadn't manage to meet up very much the past three years. There were tears and laughter. It was a good time of sharing. I think if we could, we would have continued talking into the night!

The weekend has been lazy so far. Other than the time out on Friday evening, I've been enjoying the comforts of my room, watching the Korean drama, You Are Beautiful or 미남이시네요.

I finally finished watching it last night. It's really one of the better Korean dramas around and exhibits some wonderful acting chops from the cast, especially Jang Geun Seok and Park Shin Hye. It's a relatively young cast, but I was immensely impressed by the depth and variety of emotions they portrayed in their roles. I found myself chuckling uncontrollably each time JGS's Tae Kyung character called PSH's Mi Nam 'Go Mi Nam(?)' in the I'm-so-atas-and-totally-despise-you tone. It was hilarious and so cute at the same time. And, my oh my, Jung Yong Hwa was absolutely charming to watch. Even though there were criticisms about his stiff acting, I thought he wasn't too bad for a rookie actor. After all, his character Shin Woo in the drama wasn't the outgoing and cheerful sort like Jeremy (played by Lee Hong Ki who did a commendable job as well) nor the angsty Tae Kyung and definitely not like the clumsy Mi Nam-imposter. Best of all, JYH has a great singing voice. *swoons* Speaking of which, JGS sang one of my favourite jazz pieces Fly Me To the Moon while playing on the piano in one of the later episodes. *swoons again*

I think I'm going to start on Iris or 아이리스 soon. Its rating in South Korea has been steadily increasing and is now in the mid-30% range. It's been a while since I watched an action genre K-drama. Enough funny and lovey-dovey ones for now. ;P

There are some changes to my meet-ups this week. The dinner with Gina on Monday is now on Wednesday, which is a day before her birthday. Just as well. :) Tomorrow, I'll be meeting HL for lunch and maybe shopping! I hope the weather will be dry and cool (read: no hot sun and no rain).

Holiday Plans

2009-12-02T15:56:00.003+08:00

I don't think I've actually missed home all this while, but now that I'm flying back tomorrow, I do look forward somehow to coming home. I hope to meet and catch up with some (not all since, well, the rest are overseas) of my favourite people. :) So far, I've made the following arrangements:

4/12 - Tea with Mag before she flaps off for her holiday on Saturday
6/12 - Church service (I miss this!)
7/12 - Dinner with Gina
8/12 - KTV with XR
11/12 - Dinner at Tim & Chris's
19/12 - Tea at Shyama's

I'm so looking forward to all these. And, I'm going to catch up with all my K-dramas and TVB dramas intensively! LOL! I'm such a drama freak.

Of course, I'm also looking forward to my trip to New York and Mexico. I will have to get my H1N1 jab at my cousin's clinic though. Then there's the Mexico itinerary to plan for.

Oh, I absolutely need to visit my hairstylist to get my hair straightened and cut, and then have a relaxing massage and a manicure. I miss all these! Although I'm not exactly suffering from lack of food supplies in Melbourne, I do watch what I spend. Going for haircut or hair treatments, massages and manicures and pedicures aren't exactly my priorities here. Ha. I still hope to have some 'leftover' money after my course ends in June 2010.

Well, well, well... I should return to my packing. The whole apartment is in such a mess - again! ;P

Movies & Dramas

2009-11-25T14:32:00.009+08:00

It's finally the holidays! I'm going to have my 3-month long summer break! Gosh, it's been a while since I could do absolutely NOTHING for such a long period of time. :D

I finished my major assignments last Thursday and I've been catching up on sleep mainly. When I'm not sleeping, I sometimes watch K-drama and TVB drama. In fact, I just finished one K-drama last weekend My Name Is Kim Sam Soon.

I'm now watching TVB's Beyond the Realm of Conscience.

I have three K-dramas I wish to start watching, but I think I should slow down a little. LOL. Well, here they are in order of preference: 1) You're Beautiful, 2) Iris and 3) Smile.

I was at Shannon's place yesterday evening and we cooked curry for dinner! It wasn't fantastic, but I thought we did alright. I brought back half of the leftover curry and I guess I'll be eating that for dinner tonight with bread. :)~ PC and Don had their diet dinner as usual and we all watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button together. Cate Blanchett looked gorgeous as usual in the movie and it was kinda weird seeing Brad Pitt looking even younger than his real age. No wonder the movie won Best Achievement in Makeup and Visual Effects for Oscars 2009.

My Current Obsessions

2009-11-02T10:11:00.003+08:00

Over the weekend, I've been surfing quite a bit - thanks to some of the Youtube video clips posted by friends on Facebook. :D I posted some of these on my Facebook account too. Those of you who are not on my Facebook list, do check out the links I've posted below - that is, if you haven't seen them already. They're really cool stuff!

(Digression: In case some of you missed this in one of my earlier entries, sorry, but I've stopped adding students/ex-students - unless they graduated in 2001 and 2005 or somewhere in between. Thanks for your understanding. You could still reach me here. I'm keeping this blog for good and I will keep blogging until I can blog no more. Haha.)

Anyway, back to my current obsessions: I'm absolutely smitten by these people and the talent they possess.

A pair of talented twins, Janice and Sonia Lee, who are Australian-born Koreans residing in Sydney, croon to the song Officially Missing You.

World-class musicians Igudesman and Joo who are absolutely brilliant in making classical music relevant for all. Some people may feel that they've degraded classical music, but I beg to differ! Classical music is beautiful and what they're doing is helping their audiences to better understand and appreciate it. They incorporate contemporary music into classical music (which I admit isn't exactly original since many musicians do that) but their theatrics are priceless and thoroughly entertaining. You'll be guaranteed a good laugh which doesn't overshadow the creativity and brilliance they exhibit when they play their musical instruments - the violin and the piano.

If you're interested to know more, you could visit Youtube and type "Igudesman and Joo" to search for more of their videos. I think I've seen almost all their performing videos, which are all very entertaining. The ones I have here are my favourites. I had a hard time deciding which are my favourites though!

And finally, here is a short clip from Scent of A Woman, an excellent movie which hit the box office in 1992, starring Al Pacino (one of my favourite actors) and Chris O'Donnell. It's one of my favourite (beautifully filmed) scenes in the movie - one of my favourites of all time - and it plays my favourite tango piece, Por Una Cabeza, in my favourite version! :D

Enjoy and be greatly blessed! :D

Catching Up Time

2009-10-31T11:09:00.007+08:00

I can finally take a breather this weekend, albeit a short one. In fact, I was out the whole day (late afternoon until night to be precise) yesterday after submitting my assignment (at 8 am) and sleeping for only 5.25 hours (8.15 am to 1.30 pm). Heheheh. My sleeping hours have gone topsy-turvy. I can't seem to sleep before 3 am now.

Anyway, it was another huge load off after submitting two assignments this week. This means I have my last four assignments to deal with. They are all major assignments, so it's going to be another crazy marathon for the next two weeks! I can't wait for everything to be over!!! Each time I feel depressed by the amount of work to be done for each assignment, I keep reminding myself that I've chosen to do this (no one forced me!) and I ought to deal with my assignments with a more cheerful heart. It usually works. x)

Yesterday, I was out with Shannon and I had my first massage after my last one months ago in Singapore. It rejuvenated me even though it lasted only for about 20 minutes. After that, we went shopping at the new DFO at South Wharf and a late dinner at Chinatown. It felt really good to be out after having spent consecutive days in my apartment, doing nothing but assignments. Shannon was great company. :)

The weather in Melbourne has changed quite drastically this week. Temperatures are soaring as high as 29 degrees Celsius! The flies are getting very active and they're terribly annoying. They're so fat that they don't seem to fly as fast, so I managed to kill a few. On the up side, I don't need to pile on layers of clothes when I head out now. :D

Other than assignments, what else have I been up to? As usual, I'll just post the pictures slides and you'll get a fairly good idea of how I've been spending my leisure time. Hehs.

Here are the humble meals I cooked for myself in my apartment from late September until about a week or so ago. Healthy or sinful? You tell me. Ha! ;p

This was what we did on Shannon's birthday, on 10 October, a glorious Saturday.

This was one of the first few days of Melbourne's International Arts Festival. This opening ceremony performance started on Friday for four consecutive evenings. We only went for it on Sunday.

That's it for now. :)

Disappearance Related To Deadlines

2009-10-25T11:02:00.004+08:00

I realise I seem to disappear during the first two to three weeks of the month. Haha. It's not deliberate, I assure you. All thanks to my assignment deadlines, I don't quite have the time to update my blog.

I've got a few pictures to upload but I'm afraid I don't have the time now. I've got two deadlines coming this week and I'm completely clueless as to how to go about completing them! Sigh.

Shall not procrastinate and start work right after this.

One piece of happy news though: JM's coming to visit with another friend in November. I can't wait! :D

By the way, please note the spelling of 'deadline'. It's D-E-A-D-l-i-n-e. I don't know why so many people spell it as D-A-T-E-l-i-n-e. Likely because it's related to dates. But, in any case, just remember that it's DEADline. If you can't submit a piece of work on time (the deadline), you might become DEAD meat. :P

Okay. Going... going... GONE!

500 Days Of Summer

2009-09-30T14:02:00.004+08:00

I absolutely love this movie. It is one of the quirkiest, cleverest romantic comedies I've seen to date.

I love how the scenes zipped back and forth, linking the past to the present and piecing everything up so beautifully. There are several memorable quotes throughout the movie which are so real, totally witty and utterly hilarious. I ADORE the ending. It gives people much hope in finding love again. A new season, a new hope.

Thank God for creating the seasons. :D

Smile

2009-09-27T18:46:00.004+08:00

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through
For you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear
Maybe ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

Updates And Plans

2009-09-23T21:44:00.006+08:00

It was a pretty weekend. Well, despite the rain on Saturday morning, I had quite a bit of fun snapping photographs of the gorgeous tulips at the Tesselaar Tulip Festival. I'll let the slides do the talking. :)

The weather on Sunday was beautiful. I was supposed to meet Peichin, Don, Shannon and her mother for a visit at Camberwell Market. Unfortunately, I couldn't wake up on time and backed out last minute. Actually, I could have rushed down to meet them, but I would have been at least 20 minutes late and it wouldn't have been very nice to make everyone wait for me. So, just before I stepped out of the apartment, I sent Peichin a message to explain. What a pity. :( Oh well, I guess I'll join them all another time.

I didn't have a Plan B, and since Juliana invited me to join her for grocery-shopping, I thought, "Why not? Such a waste to stay indoors when the sky is such a brilliant blue!" We ended up buying a few DVDs (gosh, they're cheaper than back home!) and did our grocery shopping individually, after which I watched her eat an early dinner while we chatted at the same time.

My parents arrived Melbourne on Tuesday morning, so I've been hanging out with them since. We had pho for lunch on Tuesday, booked a day trip for a ride on Puffing Billy in the suburbs for today and then took a free ride on the City Tram on the way to my apartment. They seemed impressed with how neat and clean I've kept the apartment. Haha. ;p

I hope to hit the gym tomorrow morning and Friday morning before meeting them. In fact, I've suggested they could visit Victoria Market tomorrow morning and I'll meet them for lunch there after gym. On Friday, I'm thinking of bringing them to DFO and the Docklands for a little shopping. No idea what to do for Saturday yet. I wonder if I should bring them around the university to take a look in the morning and then take a cruise along the Yarra, since my dad wants to. Then, it's the Tulip Festival again on Sunday. They'll be leaving on Monday evening, which means they probably only have the morning left to do any last minute shopping or photo-taking around the city. Right, that's the tentative plan.

JM can't visit me this spring break, so I will probably spend quite a bit of time on my assignments. Hopefully, she comes in late spring or early summer when I'm done with all my assignments. I'm planning to visit C over Christmas and New Year 2010 - 2 weeks in NYC! Then more exploring in Australia when I return.

I can't wait for the super-long summer holiday! :D

Weekend Fun

2009-09-17T22:52:00.009+08:00

I can finally breathe a little more easily for the next two weeks. It's spring break!!! :D The past few weeks were so terrible that my normal schedule just went haywire and I stopped going to the gym for a couple of weeks now. There were readings to do, assignments to complete... what else is new where a student's life is concerned? Heh. Anyway, quality of work aside, I'm just glad that all my assignments were submitted on time. I did well in my first two, passable for the third one and the fourth... well, let's just say I'm not really eager to get back my grade for that one. :\

After all assignments had been submitted, I watched Up one evening with Peichin, Shannon and Don. The 3D-experience was pretty cool and the animated movie itself was entertaining. On Saturday, we went for a Salvador Dali exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), a totally eye-opening and thought-provoking experience. Appreciating art can be quite an intellectual process, especially if the pieces are as abstract as Dali's works. I have a new-found respect for surrealist artists now. :) It was Korean cuisine for dinner and Koko Black for drinks after an artsy afternoon. The food was great and so was the company. :D

I met Juliana the next day to walk around in the city and to explore the harbour area. It was a pity the day started out cloudy. All my pictures didn't turn out that good. :( We walked down Swanston Street, grabbed some brochures at Federal Square and I had my brunch at Southgate's foodcourt. Along the way, we saw people running for some marathon that was going on. We shopped at DFO and then walked past the stadium to get to Harbour Town. It was a pretty long walk. Despite feeling tired from her fasting, Juliana was game enough to carry on. We took a tram back to the city and bought some grocery before having dinner and calling it a day.

Here's the apple strudel Pikie bought for Peichin and me when she was in Perth over the weekend to celebrate Melody's birthday. It doesn't look that fantastic but, trust me, it was delicious! :) I was just sorry that I had to finish it within two days.

The Man Who Can't Get Married

2009-08-23T15:43:00.005+08:00

I recently finished watching the above K-drama which I really, really enjoyed. Now that its run has ended a few weeks ago, I miss watching the characters.

It was different from the usual cliched comedies. This was quirky, lighthearted and hilarious. (Read synopsis on Mysoju.) I love all the characters in the drama, not to mention the three leads (Ji Jin Hee, Uhm Jung Hwa and Kim So Eun) who played Cho Jae Hee, Jang Moon Jung and Jung Yoo Jin respectively. They kept me in stitches at every episode, especially the comically awkward and blossoming relationship between Cho Jae Hee and Jang Moon Jung. Fantastic chemistry! I intend to buy this serial when I can get my hands on it.

Unfortunately, its soundtrack isn't as appealing, though a couple of songs are nice, just not outstanding enough.

And I wish... I hope... there will be a sequel to this. Perhaps, The Man Who Finally Got Married? :D

More Updates

2009-08-16T20:07:00.021+08:00

Clearly, I haven't been able to blog as regularly. It wasn't because I was terribly busy or that I was being lazy. Strangely, my need for blogging seems to have diminished somewhat now that I'm in Melbourne. I'm thinking it could be due to the fact that I've stopped working and am truly away from it all. But the weeks are zipping by. I've been here for 6 weeks. I wish time would slow down so that I could savour my moments here.

That doesn't mean I'm having a worry-free time here though. To be honest, I'm struggling quite a bit with studies, having not done academic reading nor writing for more than a decade. I'm taking a while to adjust to reading difficult journals and papers written by brilliant people in the academia world. It's indeed a tremendous change from reading error-filled essays written by my pupils. Hehs.

Like my pupils, I have assignments to complete now. At the moment, there's an assignment due this coming Wednesday on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and it's tougher than setting comprehension papers. There are 9 questions based on a terribly lengthy reading and we're expected to write a paragraph (no one- or two-liner answer, mind you) for every answer - just for that one miserable mark. Armed with coloured highlighters and pens (to paraphrase whatever that I've read), I'm still ploughing through the reading, at times wondering if whatever that I've read got registered in my puny brain. Yes, indeed, I'm feeling the stress - which explains why I'm finally blogging after about 3 weeks of disappearance.

Anyways, I'm not going to blog in great detail about what happened the past few weeks. I'll just post some photographs which I've snitched, again, from some of my friends' photo albums on Facebook. (PS: By the way, if you're one of my pupils or ex-pupils, kindly refrain from adding me on Facebook because I've kind of stopped adding ex-pupils - with the exception of certain really 'old' batches. Sorry!)

Last weekend was pretty fun. On Saturday evening, we were at a friend's place for steamboat dinner. I met some familiar faces and some new faces. It was an evening of eating (oh gosh, the tomyam soup was shiokalicious!), chatting, photo-snapping and Jenga!

See how focussed we were.

The whole lot of us at the steamboat party :D

The following evening, some 500 Singaporean (and non-Singaporean) undergraduate and postgraduate students from UniMelb, RMIT and Monash gathered at Sidney Myer Asia Centre to celebrate Singapore's 44th birthday and to say the pledge at 8.22pm SGT (10.22pm Melbourne time). It was a riot! Ha!

First we had to queue up just to get into the building. This was the length of the queue by the time we arrived. Apparently, some people were already queueing up as early as 5pm to get the limited NDP bags which were specially flown in from back home!

This was the third queue we had to overcome for the spread of yummy Singapore food - after the queue to register our names. I think the picture of my overloaded dinner plate is floating around somewhere.

After queue number 4, we were finally in the auditorium, waiting to watch the live screening of NDP 2009. :D

I didn't bother taking anymore pictures after that. It was too much of a hassle taking the camera out from and putting it back into the bag. The organisers stopped showing NDP 2009 after the march pass and there were a few performances, some quizzes and a few rounds of lucky draw before we tuned back at around 10.20pm just in time to say the pledge and sing the national anthem together with fellow Singaporeans at home and around the rest of the world.

This was taken just before we left.

Oh, the following are pictures of the pasta I've been whipping up in my miniscule apartment. Once, the fire alarm in my apartment went off during a particularly smoky cooking session! My subsequent stir-frying attempts were done by running to and from the window balcony whenever I removed the pan cover so that the 'smoke' from the food would float out of my window. Hilarious. Come to think of it, I suspect the tenant living directly below my apartment probably does the same thing. There were times when the smell of cooked food from elsewhere floated into my room. LOL.

My version of non-creamy pasta, but with loads of chopped garlic and generous serving of pork.

This was the dish that triggered the fire alarm. LOL. I was stir-frying chopped garlic, mushrooms, green vegetables and sliced sausages. Aglio olio with meat asian-style! =D

Right. Enough blogging for now. It's time to return to my dreaded readings. SIGH.

Meals In Melbourne

2009-07-26T21:42:00.007+08:00

My meals in Melbourne are generally simple. I don't eat out very often because the food portion and price are double the portion and price in Singapore! At least when I cook, I can control how much I eat. And, of course, it's cheaper. :D

Here are some typical dishes I cook in my apartment. Breakfast or brunch is a lot more than what I have in Singapore because it's so cold that I get hungry very easily. This was what I had on one of my first days in Melbourne.

Lunch or dinner varies. If I'm really hungry, I cook pasta. Otherwise, it's usually porridge, glass noodles in soup or even bread again.

So far, I haven't cooked rice since I'm not much of a rice-lover. ;p

Right, all this food talk is making me hungry - again. I think I should go to bed to sleep away my hunger. I've run out of apples to snack on.

Photo Updates

2009-07-25T17:55:00.034+08:00

Here are some photos taken from two friends' Facebook photograph albums. We had dinner at Chapel Street, where there was a long stretch of shops, restaurants and pubs. It's quite a cool place. Oh, I know... I haven't been using my camera conscientiously enough! ;p I shall endeavour to optimise the use of my camera to snapshoot my time in Melbourne. :D

These were taken from my camera: our dinner!

I took a shot of the clock tower at UMelb some time last week.

And here are the terribly delayed photographs of us at the start and end of our ski trip at Mount Buller about two weeks ago - courtesy of another friend. There are a few more floating around in some friends' cameras. I have no idea where...

And from my camera:

This was a 麻辣火锅 lunch we had at Glen Waverly after service on my second Sunday in Melbourne.

Here are some shots of the sights and sounds of Victoria Market during my second visit. There were loads of fresh food!

This was my lunch that day: fantastic fish and chips! :)~

And finally, this was what I had for tea one afternoon when I went exploring the shops at Brunswick with friend. It's a beef pie. :)

Week Zero

2009-07-23T11:56:00.003+08:00

Orientation has begun. So far this week, I've only gone to the campus twice - on Monday and Tuesday - to attend a few talks. Some were useful, some were not. I dozed off during one on library. I guess I should have just gone and surf on the library website on my own.

I'm still awaiting confirmation of my enrolment. I hope the confirmation comes tomorrow morning so that I can go and get my student card and feel a bit more secure that my subject selection has been approved. Patience... patience...

It's almost the end of my 3rd week here in Melbourne. I'm feeling really apprehensive about lessons starting soon. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, please hear my prayers.

My First Ski Experience

2009-07-17T18:02:00.005+08:00

The highlight of the week was a ski trip I went with six friends two days ago. It was my first attempt to ski and needless to say I fell down quite a few times.

Donned in ski suit and boots and armed with ski equipment, I'd never felt clumsier! I was already half-dead by the time I managed to buckle up the boots, with some help from Elaine. x_X After that, we had to clamber up the slopes to the ski school. Very painful indeed.

I never went beyond learning how to walk sideways upslope and to stop while sliding down. It took me quite a while to get the hang of side-walking upslope. It was frustrating at first because every time I struggled two steps upwards, I'd slide back another four steps. By the time I struggled to the top of the (very gentle) slope, I felt ready to collapse because my legs were so wobbly from exhaustion. Sliding down wasn't very easy for me, too. I'm convinced I'm the ultimate klutz when it comes to land sports. TCMI - Totally Cannot Make It!

Still, I think I did learn a little bit of skiing and I did have fun on the whole. The company was great, the weather wasn't too bad (it snowed twice for a short while!) and I'm sure I'd burnt lots of calories that afternoon on Mount Buller. That was the first time I'd actually felt hot on a snowy mountain.

It was a pity that we didn't have time to take the lift up to see the whole ski resort. I would have enjoyed snapping shots of the snowy slopes. Hopefully, I can find company and enough vitamin M for another ski trip while I'm in Australia.

Time for hot tea... I'm having a sneezing fit again. :/

Settling In

2009-07-13T09:32:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since my last post. Yep, I've left Singapore and am now in Melbourne.

My first week in Melbourne was interesting. The first few days saw me cleaning me up the apartment and getting some home items - electric blanket, quilt, bed linen, toaster, and so on and so forth. I went marketing once at Victoria Market and bought myself some fish, vegetables, fruits, garlic and CHILLI! I went to the bank and opened two accounts. I'm hoping to have some leftover money in the bank one year from now, so that I can keep the account here.

The Internet connection has been giving me a little problem last week, but I think the IT company has solved the problem now. I've not been logged out of the system so far with the new account. :)

I've been chatting/emailing with family and friends via the Internet, so I'm really feeling a little too lazy to type everything out again. ;p Anyway, it's been a cool first week. I met people, ate a lot, slept a lot, watched a lot of TV, walked a lot... oh, and attended church service at Bridge Church in Richmond yesterday. Apparently, it's the church's new name and the whole service started and ended on time. The sermon was about the significance of the new name of the church and how it mirrors God's heartbeat for the world.

God is good and faithful, so on the whole, it's been good for me so far. I'm still trying to get used to the weather. Initially, it was refreshing to experience the cold all the time (in contrast to Singapore's perpetual summer heat). Now, I'm kind of suffering from the cold and dry climate and have been applying heaps of moisturiser to keep my skin from cracking up. I'm downing lots of water too, so that my stomach would be fooled into thinking that it's full and I don't have to eat so much all the time. Heh.

Hopefully, the weeks to come will be fun and good. Though I'm feeling a little apprehensive about studying again after a decade, I hope school will be great. :)

Meet-Ups II

2009-06-24T16:08:00.004+08:00

And to continue with my makan 'escapades'...

It was a dimsum dinner last Saturday night. The food was great. I did not manage to satisfy my craving for egg tarts unfortunately because they were sold out. :( We went to a pub beside Amara Hotel for drinks afterwards and had the entire place to ourselves that night, chatting from 9plus to 1 am. Joce left a little after 10 pm though to meet her boyfriend.

I had homecooked food the next two days and cut down on food intake, so that I could eat more when I go out again. :D

Which was what happened last night. It was chicken rice and a few dishes at Wee Nam Kee. I think I had an overdose of chicken but the food was really shiokalicious. :)~ And all for a price of $30! Cheap and great food! :) It was drinks after that at Bakerzin. We were all far too bloated to have desserts. Oh, C and HL gave me a scarf - so very sweet of them! I think I'll be wearing it very often in Melbourne during this winter. :)

Tonight, it's dinner at Tim and Christina's place. I can't wait to see their 3 kids again! From their photographs posted on Facebook, it's shocking to see how much they've grown, but still as cute as ever.

My next dinner out will be on Saturday. So, I should be eating sensibly at home before that. Haha! Well, since there's staff retreat on Thursday, I imagine I'll be too tired to do anything on Friday.

Well, after all this feasting, I'm going to cook myself very humble meals in Melbourne. Hopefully, I'll lose some weight over the year. ;P

Meet-Ups To Eat And Yak

2009-06-18T09:24:00.009+08:00

Time really flies. It's almost the end of the 4-week June holiday. Looking at the sudden surge in A(H1N1) cases in Singapore the past couple of days, I wonder if MOE will extend the school vacation by another week or two. VP emailed to inform us to prepare for HBL (Home-Based Learning) in case it's happening. Well, whether or not the extended holiday takes place, I'll be going back to work next week for meetings and workshops, as well as to clear the things on my table for the RT taking my table. Lucky him/her. It's a brand new table! ;)

Over the past week, I had a few meet-ups with some dear people.

Last Wednesday,it was lunch buffet with B, J and S at Marina Mandarin's Aquamarine. I think we were so busy catching up during our first hour that we ate very slowly. It wasn't until the waitress came by to tell us they were removing the food in a while that we quickly went to grab more food. By then, there weren't much desserts left. ;( Anyway, I still had a good time. J had to leave earlier to meet her husband, so B, S and I stayed until we were the last table to leave.

Next, was dinner with C and HL at Botanical Garden's Casa Verde. We had the usual course of appetisers, main entree and desserts. Even though we finished our food by 8plus, we stayed on for another couple of hours just to talk. For some unknown reason, I had a sudden bout of diarrhoea and had to visit the ladies twice. I returned home in time to rush to the toilet for the third time. And that was all. :O Bizarre.

The next day, I had a dimsum lunch with C and N at Paragon's Crystal Jade Golden Palace. I'd forgotten how atrocious traffic in Orchard can be on Saturday afternoons. I drove that day and was cursing and swearing the minute I turned into the road leading to Paragon. The idiotic driver in front of me refused to budge his car, holding up the traffic behind us. What made it worse were cars, wanting to turn into Paragon, stopped in the centre lane and there was no way I could switch from the left-most lane to the centre one to overtake the inconsiderate buffoon in front of me. Anyway, he finally moved off and I saw the stretch of queue along the driveway just to enter the carpark. I think I spent a good 15 to 20 minutes just outside of Paragon, waiting to enter. By the time I reached the restaurant, I was terribly late and hungryyyyyy! The minute the food came, I started chomping and was stuffed to the brim by the time we finished. I think I'm going to miss the dimsum in Singapore quite a bit. So, I hope to cram myself with more of these delightful snack-dishes in my last 2 weeks here. HAH. Oh, on the same day, I managed to change my 1-way air ticket with SIA to a 2-way one and, at the same time, switched to a night flight so that I will arrive Melbourne during the day, which will allow me to clean my room and get some administrative matters done. :)

Two days ago, I met up with XR for lunch, KTV and dinner. We had a late lunch at Marina Square's Imperial Treasure. I will miss the 锅贴 and 小笼包 there. The soup-juice in the dumplings is heavenly. :9~ After that, we spent about 4 hours screeching our lungs out at KBox. I was surprised to see JY, an ex-pupil. Apparently, he has been working there for the past few months. Dinner was at Xin Wang. The food was disappointing though. We ordered 炸云吞, 烧麦, 叉烧酥 and a plate of 香港炒面 to share. When the plate of noodles arrived, I was quite shocked to see it looking so pale. XR gobbled a couple of mouthfuls of it and declared that the chef had forgotten to add the black sauce. It was completely tasteless! We informed the manager who immediately took the offending dish away, promising to return soon with the same dish in the right taste. And so she did, with another plate of noodles which had the right colour, looking a lot more appetising. I think the portion was also slightly larger. I overate again that day.

Tonight, I will be meeting Gina, Joce and Joey for dinner at Alexandra Village. No more restaurant food at the moment. I'm craving for some cheap and good hawker fare. I won't get to eat them for the coming year. I suppose they do serve such dishes in Melbourne but at a higher cost and double the portion, I was told. Still, the taste isn't entirely the same, I'm sure.

I'm probably going for another round of dimsum with the girls this weekend too, but this time at Chinatown. I can't wait for another catching-up-cum-makan session with them! :) As it is, I'm already thinking of what to eat after the hawker food and Chinatown dimsum. Haha!

And yes, I'm still obsessed with The Legend OST. I've been playing it non-stop on my MacBook for more than a week now, and I'm still not sick of it!

태왕사신기 The Legend

2009-06-10T08:09:00.008+08:00

These days, I'm playing the original soundtrack of 태왕사신기 The Legend (of the First King's Four Guardians) on my laptop. The K-drama was released a couple of years back, I think. I postponed watching it - even though I had bought the drama four months ago - because mythical genre isn't exactly my cup of tea.

It turned out far more enjoyable than I'd imagined, though I wasn't impressed by special effects for the mythical bits. I found the scenes where the characters discussed about war strategies most exciting. There were also several funny moments as there were quite a few clownish characters who broke the tension. Sometimes, the drama came across as draggy - saved only by the fantastic soundtrack. (I found myself listening to the music and studying everything within the frame, drawn by the effects of how music could make an otherwise draggy scene so compelling.) If not, I would have dozed off. Heh. Still, over all, the drama got me hooked to the screen for hours.

By the way, I've never seen a Bae Yong Joon drama before this; not even Winter Sonata. This was the first. I must say he looked really good in the costumes though there were times I thought he looked abnormally fair for a guy. You could actually see lines under his eyes upon a close-up shot and you would wonder if they were really wrinkles or caused by too-thick make-up. Perhaps even both ;p

Well, here's the OST which I'm enjoying so much now. Yes, they're mostly orchestral pieces except for two songs. :D I love how all these pieces are so rich with melancholy and grandeur. They make me wish I had not given up on studying music!

Mess To Clear, Friends To Meet

2009-06-06T11:56:00.007+08:00

I finally shifted all my things to the new staffroom. :) I was told my table would be left empty; maybe the RT would be sitting there. So, I'm thinking of clearing the table of everything - except for the textbooks - and lock all my things in the metal cupboard. I have quite a bit of filing to do - lesson materials from whole of 2008 and half of 2009.

My room is in a mess too. There are boxes and bags of items from the staffroom move and I have to sort everything out before I can start packing up for Melbourne. I'm still not done with my list of items to buy and bring over there either. I probably should be less meticulous and get everything over and done with. :P

In the midst of all this, I finished watching a 172-half-hour-episode K-drama, 미우나 고우나 Likeable Or Not aka I Hate You But It's Fine. It was very entertaining in the usual K-drama way.

I seldom watch such K-dramas that span beyond 25 episodes because it's too exhausting to follow, but I enjoyed this one so much that I wonder if I should choose another lengthy one to watch before I leave! Haha! That's quite unlikely, I guess, judging from the massive mess I have to clear in my room. ;p

Right, I can't wait for the few meet-ups lined up this week. There's lunch with B, J and S. We've been meeting up as regularly as we can during school holidays and the thought of not seeing them for the coming year saddens me a little. I'm looking forward to the hotel stay too. It's been a while since I last met up with the girls because of work. I think I haven't seen them since March! :O Cousin XR has also asked me if I was keen to go KL with her over a weekend for KTV and shopping, but it's just impossible to spend more than 2 nights away from home with all the craziness I have to settle. We've decided to screech our lungs out at KTV this Thursday instead. :)

Okay, it's time to eat my lunch. Ciao.

꽃보다 남자 Boys Over Flowers OSTs

2009-05-30T22:20:00.005+08:00

Here's what I've been listening to for a while - the soundtracks from 꽃보다 남자 Boys Over Flowers or Boys Before Flowers. Enjoy! (;

Another Busy June

2009-05-30T15:04:00.006+08:00

It's been almost two weeks since I last blogged. A few unfortunate things happened at work which got many of us shocked, but I shall not dwell on them.

School's out. The June holiday is finally here. And I'll be busy packing all my stuffs at work and at home. Many of my colleagues' tables are almost cleared. I managed to pack everything into boxes and bags except for a few items here and there. I guess we all can't wait to move our things into the brand new staffroom. :)

Just last week, right after staff meeting, some of us went to take a look at it. Every teacher has been given a huge metal cupboard to store our teaching materials! Naturally, all the cupboards eat into the walking space. So even though the staffroom is bigger than before, it's pretty squeezy between our workstations. I'm just glad I've got a good place. :)

At the same time, I'm also busy preparing for my studies. There are so many things to do! Right now, I'm still trying to settle my accommodation. I hope everything will be done by this coming week, so that I can start packing.

Well, I'll still be at work on the first two days of Term 3. And then, I'll be off! :D

I can feel that it's going to be another very busy holiday even though I'm not involved in the remedial for the graduating classes.

Next Movie To Watch

2009-05-17T06:42:00.004+08:00

I decided to take a mini-break from all my marking to surf on this next movie I want to watch:

I'm no Trekkie fan, but I've seen enough to be somewhat familiar with the idiosyncrasies of some of the main characters. Hopefully, I can watch this soon. :)

MO - X-Men - Marking - Music

2009-05-11T19:59:00.005+08:00

I had a very fruitful time at Mandarin Oriental last Thursday and Friday. The staff were all very warm and hospitable to us. It was first-hand learning what goes behind the scenes in a luxury hotel. I must say I am truly impressed. :) Unfortunately, I can't post any photos up here. They're strictly for educational purposes.

Actually, as a guest myself a couple of years back, I had the opportunity of experiencing their wonderful service. I'd left my VCD in the player upon checking-out. By the time I found out, it was a few days later. And it was one of my favourite movies! I called up the hotel and they were very patient with me, assuring me they would find the VCD. They did and I went down to collect it. The staff was very professional the whole time. There was not a single word of complaint about why I was making a mountain out of a molehill over a VCD. Thanks to Mandarin Oriental, I'm still able to watch the movie today. :D

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine was explosive! It was so action-packed that I forgot about my exhaustion the whole time I was watching it. I'm so tempted to watch the first three X-Men movies again. Heh.

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I have 160 essays to mark and the deadline is this Friday. I'm only 15% done. SIGH.

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Oh, here's a Korean song I enjoy...

Too Much Paper Work (yes, marking included)

2009-05-06T16:31:00.008+08:00

I have so much administrative crap to settle that I feel a little dizzy. This is just proof that I can't do jobs that are administrative in nature for nuts!

I finally completed setting all the examination papers. Well, I had to - since examination has started officially today. -_- But it sure was an absolute nightmare to set the EBS Paper 1 for my graduating pupils. It's a new subject and I had no specimen papers to refer to. The secondary three papers from all the secondary schools last year weren't exactly helpful because they only tested certain chapters in the textbook. Speaking of which, THANK GOD FOR TEXTBOOKS! The textbook was my only resource, so how difficult can the paper be right? Ha... we shall see. ;p

The other administrative matters are issues pertaining to my studies. There are so many things to prepare for! I feel rather overwhelmed. My counsellor hasn't been exactly helpful, so I've been doing a lot of things myself. I guess it's good that it's happening now when I still have parents and friends to consult. Come July 2009, it's going to be total independence! I can't wait! I admit, I'm terribly excited! Who wouldn't? Ha!

Before that though, I have about 160 essay scripts to plough through by 15 May (horror of horrors, it's NEXT FRIDAY!) and I realised this morning, while checking my organiser, I have a 2-full-day course to attend for the rest of this week, salsa on Sunday, signing of bond at MOE HQ and x-ray at AMK on Monday, and one course and several meetings the whole of next week. How in the world am I going to finish marking 160 essays?!

Then, there's MH's church wedding on 16 May. Everyone will look fresh and good - except me! ARGH!

Yes, that's why I'm meeting C to work tonight. I hope to mark 25 scripts tonight. If my calculations are right, I should take about 4 hours to mark 25 scripts. That's about 10 minutes per script. Gosh, I think I will only get to sleep at 1 am tonight. x(

Hm, right, I should start marking a few scripts now. I'll blog again another time.

Take care, people.

Hated

2009-05-01T19:52:00.004+08:00

After dinner, I came back to my room only to find not one but two small lizards on the ceiling of my room. Instead of freaking out like how I usually do, I felt a sudden surge of anger. I stomped out of my room and promptly returned with two bottles of insecticide.

I started spraying the insecticide at them. One fell behind my wardrobe (ARGH!!!) while the other fell behind my book shelf (DOUBLE ARGH!!!!!!). As they were out of sight, there was nothing else I could do but continue spraying more insecticide behind the wardrobe and book shelf. I have absolutely no idea if they're dead or alive at this point. I hope the insecticide does its job. :p

I find lizards terribly annoying because they are like pigeons, leaving their poo everywhere. I cannot imagine waking up one morning to see lizard poo on my precious MacBook! UGH!

Darn, I just realise something. My wardrobe isn't airtight, so my clothes will reek of insecticide. :( *TRIPLE ARGH!!!!!!!!!*

I HATE LIZARDS!!!

Exams, Fever, Choir & Study Prep

2009-04-26T12:37:00.008+08:00

Ever since SYF 2009 ended for my Choir, I've been busy setting examination papers. I've submitted one and there are two more to go. Unfortunately, I'm not having much luck with these two papers. I think I enjoy setting English Language papers more.

I was on medical leave on Friday with the onslaught of fever since Thursday evening. It wasn't anything serious, but my head felt heavy. I spent most of the day hibernating in bed.

I've been trying to settle my Melbourne accommodation too. It's somewhat a hassle to go to the bank ever so often to settle all sorts of money issues. I don't think I've ever been to the bank this many times before to ask questions and to submit or collect forms or documents. Bleh. Oh well, I don't have much of a choice, really.

I have to go IDP this coming week to settle my eVISA. There's a meeting with Ai Ming tomorrow at 4pm, so Monday's out. Tuesday and Wednesday are impossible too because of the N and O Level Preliminary EL Oral Examinations for the graduating pupils. I guess that leaves me with only Thursday. And yes - Friday is a public holiday!!!

By the way, I've bought my air ticket! I'm counting down already. :D

Endless Slogging

2009-04-19T10:46:00.005+08:00

Now that SYF 2009 is over for my school's choir (you can read about it here), I can finally sit down properly for the examination papers. One stress after another. 'Tis endless slogging.

The papers are still far from completion. My brain juices aren't working, it seems. ;p

Oh, and there's still the salsa class with cousin later. I'm so dead. I honestly don't feel like going with all the work piling up, but she's paid the course fees and it's unthinkable to waste the money like that.

I wonder what in the world made me say 'yes' to her suggestion. -_-

One piece of good news came though during this stressful week - my leave has been approved and confirmed. :)

F4 - The Korean Version

2009-04-11T11:57:00.009+08:00

Recently, I finished watching a K-drama, 꽃보다 남자 or Boys Over Flowers (aka Boys Before Flowers) and was pleasantly surprised by how much I'd enjoyed it. It's the Korean version of 流星花園 or Meteor Garden, and closely based on a Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango. I did not watch Meteor Garden nor the Japanese anime when they were aired because I generally don't enjoy listening to Taiwanese Mandarin nor watch anime.

I only watched the Korean version because I was hoping to get some entertainment out of it. And it certainly did entertain me, though towards the last few episodes I felt the on-and-off relationship between the two leads was getting tiresome and irritating. In this respect, it resembled Full House. Also, it was terribly unrealistic and cliched. The soundtrack wasn't all that fantastic except for one of the F4's Yoon Ji Hoo's singing and playing of the violin, guitar and piano. (By the way, I thought he looked vampirishly pale throughout the drama though he stood out with his golden hair and white or pastel suits.)

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the drama to a large extent - thanks to the eye-candies and beautiful sets. I was also scrutinising the fashion wear modelled by the acting crew. I loved how poised and elegant Goo Jun Pyo's mother looked in her business attire. She reminded me of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. However, I didn't like the cutesy evening dresses they gave Geum Jan Di even though they were supposed to match her image. The clothes she wore for those gala dinners and parties didn't look flattering on her.

I think the drama was popular largely because of the good-looking actors and how the love between the two leads lasted in spite of all the obstacles, including their own aspirations. For me, the unrealistic romance aside, I enjoyed the drama for its funny moments, flashy fashion and fabulous-looking hunks and babes.

Signs Of Aging

2009-04-04T19:41:00.011+08:00

Just when I thought Week 1 of Term 2 in school was crazy, Week 2 wasn't any better. Thankfully, I wasn't involved in the MTP for the graduating classes. I heard it ended very late last night.

Week 2 has gone by in a flash so much so that it was all a blur and all I remember is Choir. (That's a sign of aging.)

Our SYF performance day is a week and a half from now. I was looking at the calendar and realised that we only have effectively SEVEN days left! :O Prayers have helped soothe my nerves, thank God. I think I have done what I could and all that I can do now is pray for them.

On a more positive note, I'm looking forward to the long weekend since there are no lessons on Thursday due to the school's annual cross country. C and I are planning to cook up a storm. Mahahah! Okay, not exactly a storm, but at least it's a cheaper alternative to shopping. ;p She's invited SH along, so if she's joining us, it'll be an all-girls' night-in.

I miss doing such girly stuffs together. Ever since Mel was preparing for her wedding and new life in Belgium at the end of last year, I've not had such gatherings in a while. I guess when we grow older, it gets harder too. We don't chat our nights away anymore because sleep is so important; we need to recharge ourselves after working for long hours and with such hectic schedules during the week. 'Tis another sure sign of aging.

I was just checking out my wrinkles the other day. I think I may have to start botox a lot sooner than I'd planned. o_O!!!!

A Busy Week

2009-03-27T22:19:00.004+08:00

Week 1 of Term 2 in school is over. It's amazing how I just lose track of time during school term. Work everyday seems unending and yet time simply flies. Blogging like this helps me recall what I have done and who I have met during the week.

It's been a busy one: There was choir practice on Monday (as usual). I was on medical leave on Tuesday (having woken up with a fever). As a result, I had a lot more work to clear on Wednesday. I met C for dinner that night though and read for an hour. On Thursday night, I attended a baptism service with JM to witness MH's baptism at Westley Methodist. After that we drove to Dempsey where I had a late dinner at Oosh. JM had a drink instead. We chatted till about 10.30 pm and I sent her home.

Finally, today, work ended late due to MTP for the secondary 3 pupils. By the time I finished talking to some parents, it was about 9 pm. Thank God J gave me a lift home! Otherwise, I would have had to wait forever to get a cab. -_-'

My weekend will be all work again. Choir practices at SLO on Saturday and Sunday. I may even meet up with C to work too. What a life. Or rather, the lack of it. x_x

A Busy March Holiday

2009-03-21T09:20:00.005+08:00

This has got to be the busiest March holiday I have ever had.

First of all, Choir day camp from Monday to Wednesday exhausted me so much that I had no energy to go out in the evenings.

Thankfully, I had a breather on Thursday. We had a catch-up session with Kris over dinner and desserts at Serene Centre. Dinner was very affordable French cuisine at La Petite and then ice-creams for desserts at the ice-cream parlour next door. It's been a while since we last met Kris, so she had quite a bit to share. Despite certain irritants and concerns she has, I'm sure things will work out for her. They always do when God is in the picture.

I enjoyed Friday the most. There was a choral workshop at GESS. I thought it was a very fruitful session because there was improvement in choir's singing. Our sopranos have a lot to work on one of the choice pieces though. It's a tough a cappella, but if all the sections sing it well, it's going to be so beautiful. I can already imagine how wonderful they'll sound. Indeed, there is still room for much improvement simply because it's a tough song to sing. The other 4 school choirs sang very well, especially GESS as usual. I'm always very impressed by the dedication and discipline they exhibit during practice sessions - even when their teachers are not around! One of the schools improved really by leaps and bounds within the few hours of the workshop and I was struck by the difference. They became a lot more confident and everyone was very engaged in their singing.

What Aiming said about energy reminded me of the days when I was in Music & Dance back in JC and dance ministry in my old church. Both M&D instructor and dance ministry leader always demanded these of every dancer: "More energy! More!" and "Smile! Look lively!" Every fibre of muscle in our body MUST BE exerted - from our heart (yes, it's a muscle too) to every extended part of our body especially the face, fingers and toes. It's the same in singing (in fact, everything else that we do): to give our absolute best - physically, mentally, spiritually... in all aspects! Imagine the tremendous progress that can be made if EVERYONE does that! I witnessed it when the kids were preparing for SYF 2007 and it sent shivers down my spine. In my few years with Choir, that was the first time I saw them performing with confidence and style. The team spirit and energy were electrifying. And the results SHOWED it all. I'm praying so hard for them this time round.

I met Gina after the workshop to shop around a little. I still couldn't find any nice dresses and shoes. It was one of those disappointing days when you're all ready to be a shopaholic but nothing catches your eye. We headed to Great World City to queue up for dinner and, at the same time, wait for Joey to arrive. Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant and the food wasn't too bad. As usual, I ate till I felt guilty and resolved not to snack during the movie. I'd been having a craving for salted buttered popcorns (I still do!) so it took a lot of willpower to march past the food counter.

As the movie started, I realised I had no idea what kind of movie I was watching other than knowing it was a Japanese film. I guess it was partly because I went in with zero expectation that I enjoyed it so much. Departures was beautifully poignant with unexpected comical moments within the first half. There were a few times I caught myself still giggling when the audience had already stopped laughing. I shall not disclose anything more about the film but, honestly, it's one movie which I will remember for quite a while. I rate it 4.5 out of 5 stars! (;

I will probably spend my day at home today since I woke up feeling ill (stuffy nose and raw throat), though oddly in a cheerful mood. I just backed out from a KTV-cum-lunch session with my cousin and her friend even though I'd agreed last night to join them. Everyone who knows me well knows how much I love singing. So yeah, this explains how unwell I'm feeling now. Maybe it's because term 2 of school is starting soon in 2 days' time...

Well, in any case, I should rest at home today since I'll be out again tomorrow, attending church service with the girls and then probably making another attempt to be a shopaholic. ;p

Let's all enjoy what's left of the school holiday! :D

An Exhausting 3 Days

2009-03-18T20:34:00.003+08:00

It has been an exhausting 3 days. The Choir day camp is finally over. The leaders have worked very hard to organise and to conduct the various activities. Also, I'm glad to see some of the secondary 2 pupils coming out of their shells, becoming more involved in leading the rest of them.

However, I wish the attendance was better. It's sad that so many of the secondary 1 pupils and a number of the seniors did not come for the camp. They needed this time to polish up their singing and catch up with the rest of their seniors. Anyway, Ai Ming will be conducting a final round of audition next Monday, so good luck to those who haven't been attending. If they can't sing, I am taking their names out from SYF. We do not have anymore time for them to catch up. This period of time is most crucial because Ai Ming will be doing dynamics with them. And for their benefit, if they don't start on dynamics soon, the pupils will be bored to death singing the same 3 songs monotonously. I know I would!

There is one last activity for Choir on Friday. It's a very crucial workshop, so hopefully at least 95%, if not all, of the choir will turn up. It's a good opportunity for them to listen to other schools' choir and see how everyone has improved since the last rehearsal at VCH.

As for me, I intend to vegetate the rest of today and the whole of tomorrow in my room until I feel recharged for Friday.

Vegetation mode from henceforth in operation.

Shopping Spree

2009-03-15T20:17:00.002+08:00

I had my very first shopping spree of the year today. It has been quite a while since I last bought many things (if any at all) at one go. I think the last one was during my trip to Hong Kong for my bestie's wedding in December. My budget totally burst. Then again, that was because of the hotel rates for the last two days.

The shopping spree today was quite spontaneous. 'Quite' because when I first woke up this morning, I had a feeling I would go shopping anyway. You could say I was in the mood to shop. :D

After first service and brunch, we decided to accompany Joey to buy fresh beef, but on our way to Raffles Place, we got distracted by Gap and went into the shop with the intention of helping Gina buy some clothes appropriate for work. I bought one blouse myself.

We went into Topshop where Joey bought something, but we couldn't find anything. So I went to Promod to check out their clothes since I always seem to be able to buy something there. They didn't disappoint me. :) I bought four blouses and two necklaces which amounted to approximately $222 (nice figure!). There was a $30-rebate for every $200 spent, so I paid $192 for everything. I didn't manage to get any dresses or shoes though. I'm going to hunt for dresses and get a pair of white shoes when I go shopping next.

I'm so tempted to buy dresses online because I saw a few nice ones, but I know I mustn't! Self-control, babe, self-control. x)

Superfantastic

2009-03-15T01:36:00.002+08:00

Here's another happy K-pop I enjoy. The English lyrics don't make much sense at certain parts though. Oh well. I like the catchy tune. ;p

Too Much Good Food

2009-03-15T00:59:00.004+08:00

I have had too much good food to eat lately. I think I've only drunk clear, healthy soup for dinner just once this week!

I can't remember what I ate from Monday to Wednesday. On Thursday, after Sports Day, I went for lunch with JL and JK at Tiong Bahru's Toastbox. I had a bowl of sausage noodles and then shared a bowl of laksa with JL. Then for dinner, my dad bought wanton noodles.

On Friday, Boss No. 2 treated the staff to a farewell lunch with catered food and I had two helpings of mee siam, and two rounds of the rest of the dishes. Oh, and there was the chocolate cake for dessert. Then, that evening, I had dinner with Joce at VivoCity. As usual, I ordered a cream-based pasta, and we know how it is like with cream-based pasta. Too much of it makes one sick after a while. That was how I felt basically. After that, we shared brownie and chocolate ice-cream for desserts.

This afternoon, I cooked myself instant noodles for lunch and I totally regretted it. I should have eaten lettuce for lunch. Dinner with C and HL earlier this evening was Japanese cuisine at Mohd Sultan. We chomped and gossiped, then had desserts somewhere else. Because HL and I had craving for ice-cream, this was what we shared: Chic Choc. God knows why I've been having this inexplicable, irrational craving for chocolate ice-cream lately.

I have had it with carbohydrates. NO MORE. I am going to eat grass and drink sky juice this coming week. Yes, I will!!!

More Photos From Mel's Wedding Reception

2009-03-11T21:19:00.010+08:00

Here are some of the overdue photos I snitched from Mel from her wedding reception last month. ;P

It was really cool. Everyone had a great time. :)

An Eventful Week

2009-03-09T19:58:00.008+08:00

I missed blogging the whole of last week. It wasn't exactly a busy week, but I did have a few things going on.

First of all, there was the Choir practice on Monday at Victoria Concert Hall, and it lasted from 3 pm to 6 pm. By the time I got home, it was past 7 pm and I was dead tired.

Next, I finally met up with Van for dinner on Tuesday night, as she was to fly back to Beijing on Saturday. We had dinner at Wishbone in Bukit Timah Plaza, where my parents used to bring my brother and I for meals rather often when we were kids. It was a very shiok dinner. I'm just sorry I didn't order something more spicy, like curry.

And finally on Thursday, I had to attend a briefing-cum-balloting session at CCAB for SYF Choral Central Judging. I actually drove to work that day, and had the shock of my life when I found out the open-spaced carpark along Evans Road was under renovation! I drove in and out of NUS, only managing to secure a lot on my third entry. What an utter waste of time and fuel. The whole place was simply packed, so much so that there were people parking illegally. It was really annoying.

One thing that really made my week was a brief meeting with the author of Star Sapphire, Joan Hon (or Han May, her pseudonym)! Many years ago when I was still in secondary school, a friend raved and ranted so animatedly about the book that I had to read it for myself. I must say, I enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately, because my friend had borrowed the book from the national library, I did not get to read it a second time. I promptly forgot about the book until a few weeks ago when I suddenly remembered it and surfed the Internet to see if I could buy it online. Apparently, it was no longer in print and there was no way I could buy it. Unwilling to give up so easily, I continued searching online and somehow stumbled upon a forum thread - and found the author's email address. Without hesitation, I emailed her to ask her for a copy of Star Sapphire, which was how we started corresponding a little. She told me a little about herself and I found out that she knew my cousin when they were both teaching at RJC. She's retired since 2005 but still leading an active life, I think. On Thursday, she drove to my place to pass me 3 copies of Star Sapphire - one for me, one for my bestie (because she loved it too!) and a spare copy for me to give to anyone I wish. She's such a kind lady - God bless her soul. I just started reading Star Sapphire, and this time I'm going to take my time to savour it! :) I hope the sequel to Star Sapphire will get published soon too.

It was a pretty eventful week, I'd say. I'm just glad that I have the chance to read again a book I really like. :D

Beautiful Babes On A Delicious Dinner Date

2009-02-28T22:23:00.017+08:00

Dinner at VivoCity on Wednesday with my favourite girls was really fun. We had Japanese cuisine at I-can't-remember-the-name-of-the-restaurant. They served really fantastic grilled meat dishes. I had a bowl of garlic rice too. Needless to say, I ate until I could eat no more. Haha. Thankfully, I don't eat like that every night!

We were so hungry that I forgot to snap pictures of our food before we started eating. Anyway, here are some shots which I managed to capture before everything was gone. ;p

The desserts came and were quickly devoured before I could whip out my camera! So, no pictures of the red bean, green tea and sesame ice-creams we ordered. My favourite was the sesame flavoured one. It was simply divine and more than made up for my craving for a chocolate ice-cream.

Here are two pictures of beautiful us!

Mel will be flying off tomorrow night - to a new life, a new family. I'm going to miss her, our DVD marathons at her place, our dine-outs, our chill-outs, our heart-to-heart talks, attending worship service together and all the other girly stuffs crazy girl friends do together. Although she was away in France for 3 years before, it didn't feel like goodbye forever back then. Now, I feel like a part of me will be gone. Although I'm sure we'll still be in touch (via Facebook and email) and she'll come back to visit, we won't get to meet up as often.

Anyway, I wish her all the best and may our Heavenly Father continue to watch out for her, work miracles in her life, and bless her marriage and new family.

One day soon, I hope to visit her in Belgium. :)

My 'New' Dress

2009-02-24T21:26:00.016+08:00

I received quite a few compliments at work today about my 'new' dress. It caught me by surprise because I didn't realise I hadn't worn it to work before. Not that it was anything fantastic - just a simple black dress which I'd bought a couple of CNYs ago at Promod. Well, it felt good anyway to hear all the nice words. :D

Ironically, a couple of weeks back, M commented that she seldom saw me wearing dresses and my reply to her was, "Whenever you see me in a dress, it means I'm feeling too lazy to choose my clothes to mix and match." It wasn't my intention to dress up today, or whenever I'm in a dress for that matter. Haha.

Looks like I really should be buying more dresses to hear more of such compliments! ;D

More Korean music from 그들이 사는 세상 (The World They Live In), a K-drama soundtrack. It's my favourite at the moment.

Zza Zza La!!

2009-02-22T18:11:00.004+08:00

Some time back, I blogged a brief one about 연애결혼 or Love Marriage.

This afternoon, I went through the whole list of Korean songs in my laptop. When I heard this again, I was reminded of the crazy romantic comedy. It's a really catchy song. :)

A Lost Love

2009-02-22T11:48:00.012+08:00

Recently, I realised that I'd lost passion in something I used to love so much.

For the longest period of time, many years ago, I enjoyed writing - so much so that I thought I'd become a journalist or a writer, and become disgustingly famous that I would only need to write a book every 5 years (to allow for meticulous research) until death would do us part.

Yes, I had this very dramatic dream that I'd write to my very last breath, mustering every ounce of energy in my dying body through my sheer love for writing, and collapsing only upon completing the final sentence of my last book. Haha. Admittedly, I had a dramatic imagination even as a secondary school pupil.

My love for writing was very much inspired by the many wonderful books I'd read while growing up. This is another love story altogether, which I may blog about someday. To cut the long story a little shorter (I have a feeling this is going to be a lengthy entry), basically, I read a lot and absorbed a lot of ideas and 'new' words from the writers.

At the same time, when I was in lower primary, my dad drilled me in grammar. Oh, I remember all those gruelling weekends when he'd make me go over my Tenses (from the simple tenses to the complicated perfect tenses) and Active and Passive Voiced sentences. It was AGONY but his efforts and mine were were paid off years later when I found it easy to score in English compositions while most of my peers struggled to secure a pass back in secondary school. For this, I'm truly thankful to my dad (though during those years, I really hated him for torturing me).

I remember a particular writing lesson I had when I was in lower secondary which made me realise how much I'd enjoyed writing. Our English teacher had divided the class into groups of four and we had to write a narrative story. Because HB (whom I'd lost contact with over the years) and I shared a frenzied craze over Nancy Drew series (back then, it was all in the rage with the girls), we decided to write a mystery about a missing girl. Oh, how we brainstormed for ideas and kept changing our plot so as to build our story up to an impressive climax. The other two girls on our team kept complaining about our fickle-mindedness and were so cross with us at one point that they refused to contribute anymore! HB and I didn't care and we continued fine-tuning our story. The other two relented when they saw the product of our tireless discussions and were all ready to submit the essay.

But, no, HB and I were still dissatisfied. This was the part where we started restructuring our sentences and replacing common words with more flowery, bombastic ones. Oh, how I enjoyed the entire process! HB's vocabulary was the most impressive in our team while I was good with sentence-construction, so we worked really well together. Very soon, our supposedly final draft was so filled with cancellations and untidy scrawls that the other two members got fed-up with us again. If it weren't for the fact that we had a deadline to meet, I think HB and I would have gone on editing our story. So, we copied everything out neatly in our final draft for submission. Needless to say, we scored very well, earning much praise from our English teacher which sent the rest of the class scrambling to read our essay. From then on, HB and I helped each other in our English. We'd read, give feedback and edit each other's essays - even when we went different classes in upper secondary. (We were crazy over Mathematics, too, but that's again another story altogether.)

In JC, my year-two GP tutor always gave very constructive feedback to my essays which helped me improve further. Then, in NUS, a tutor from a writing module taught us the importance of having a focus in writing, and how we could make our writing more readable and interesting. Suffice to say, writing is not about impressing people with your language abilities but more so the ideas you wish to convey. Lengthy sentences peppered with bombastic words are emphatically discouraged. These should be used with wisdom - that is, appropriately - to achieve the maximum impact.

After graduating, I stopped writing altogether and only picked it up again through blogging in 2003. Still, blogging is very different from essay-writing. I blog to record and/or reflect my daily routine and thoughts, or for no particular reason sometimes, while when I write, I become very aware of the technicalities involved. I have no idea when these technicalities became tiresome to me. Perhaps it's because I'd stopped writing when I barely got started, thus disallowing what I'd learnt at university to be put into good practice.

Now I say writing is a lost love because I dread typing out reports like class analysis and marker's report (a far cry from NUS days when I enjoyed researching and writing essays so much). I was supposed to have completed a SHORT write-up due for submission in January, but it's almost the end of February now and the piece of crap is only half-completed. :(

C is right, I suppose. I should make use of this to get started on writing again. -_-

A Fusion Marriage Of The East And West

2009-02-21T09:58:00.009+08:00

L'amour n'est que le roman du coeur, c'est le plaisir qui en est l'histoire ~ Beaumarchais

It was my first time attending a cocktail wedding reception. Mel had mentioned that they'd only invited about 30 people, so it was a really private affair. Everything was very tastefully done. The theme was Fusion of the Traditional and of the Modern and our beautiful bride was all radiant in a dark red modern cheongsam. The finger food was good; I gobbled much! Hah! And because the champagne was fizzy and had a fruity tinge, I downed more than usual.

Best of all, it was a great occasion to get together! It's always so difficult to arrange for meals together so I was really glad most of us turned up to congratulate and celebrate with Mel on her big day. Vivien, already 5-month pregnant, came too. (It's been a few years since we last saw her. I think she and Alex returned to Singapore last year or so after staying in USA for 2 years. It's really good to see that everything is going well for her.) Mag even rushed down from an EL camp at her school with Zhiwei. Unfortunately, Joce couldn't make it due to work. Hopefully, we could meet up with Mel one last time before she flies off to Belgium for good this coming week.

We had a great time talking, catching up with what's been and will be going on in our lives; then laughing at Gina's crazy jokes before latching more jokes on them and guffawing even more. Mel came by occasionally to talk and laugh with us before she was whiffed away to entertain her other friends. Her pretty sisters, both in modern cheongsam tops and sleek pants, came to take pictures with and of us too. (At one point, I caught up with Imelisa for a while and found out that she and Imelia might be going Sydney for further studies.)

Speaking of which, I'd forgotten to bring along my camera for the umpteenth time, so I'm hoping to snitch some nice ones from them soon. ;P Well, this should explain the lack of photographs in this entry, except for the one (at the start) of a beautiful little souvenir I received at the wedding reception. :)

Although I won't be able to attend their church wedding this September in Europe, I wish Mel and Seb a beautiful marriage and may God bless them with a wonderful family in time to come. :D

God vs. Science

2009-02-14T09:27:00.000+08:00

Every time I receive the following via email, I smile upon reading it. Heh.

Einstein - a Student in the Classroom

'Let me explain the problem science has with religion.' The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

'You're a Christian, aren't you, son?'

'Yes sir,' the student says.

'So you believe in God?'

'Absolutely.

'Is God good?'

'Sure! God's good.'

'Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?'

'Yes'

'Are you good or evil?'

'The Bible says I'm evil.'

The professor grins knowingly. 'Aha! The Bible!' He considers for a moment. 'Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?'

'Yes sir, I would.'

'So you're good...!'

'I wouldn't say that.'

'But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't.'

The student does not answer, so the professor continues. 'He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?'

The student remains silent.

'No, you can't, can you?' the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

'Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?'

'Er..yes,' the student says.

"is Satan good?'

The student doesn't hesitate on this one. 'No.'

'Then where does Satan come from?'

The student falters. 'From God'

'That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything correct??'

'Yes'

'So who created evil?' The professor continued, 'If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.'

Again, the student has no answer. 'Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?'

The student squirms on his feet. 'Yes.'

'So who created them?'

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. 'Who created them?' There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. 'Tell me,' he continues onto another student.

'Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?'

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. 'Yes, professor, I do.'

The old man stops pacing.. 'Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?'

'No sir. I've never seen Him.'

'Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?'

'No, sir, I have not.'

'Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelled your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?'

'No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't.'

'Yet you still believe in him?'

'Yes'

'According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?'

'Nothing,' the student replies. 'I only have my faith.'

'Yes, faith,' the professor repeats. 'And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.'

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of his own. 'Professor, is there such thing as heat?'

'Yes.'

'And is there such a thing as cold?'

'Yes, son, there's cold too.'

'No sir, there isn't.'

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested.

The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain.

'You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees.'

'Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.'

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.

'What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?'

'Yes,' the professor replies without hesitation. 'What is night if it isn't darkness?'

'You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word.

'In reality, da rkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?'

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. 'So what point are you making, young man?'

'Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.'

The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time. 'Flawed? Can you explain how?'

'You are working on the premise of duality,' the student explains.. 'You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought.

'It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it. 'Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?'

'If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.'

'Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?'

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.

'Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?'

The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.

'To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.'

The student looks around the room. 'Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?' The class breaks out into laughter.

'Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelled the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.'

'So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?'

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.

Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. 'I guess you'll have to take them on faith.'

'Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,' the student continues. 'Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?'

Now uncertain, the professor responds, 'Of course, there is. We see it everyday It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.'

To this the student replied, 'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.'

The professor sat down.

The student was Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein did write a book titled God vs. Science in 1921...

For we walk by faith, not by sight.
(2 Corinthians 5:7)

What's New?

2009-02-11T22:23:00.004+08:00

Work this week has been pretty much alright so far. Of course there were certain frustrations and obstacles, but things don't go right all the time, do they? We just do what we have to do.

So, what's new?

I left work early yesterday and today. So early that it felt surreal. Ha. The feeling was good, nonetheless. I had the opportunity to meet XR for some recreation and we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant. I ate till my stomach hurt. HAHA. Honestly, we didn't order that much. We each had a bowl of noodles and shared a plate of soft shelled crabs. Then again, the bowl of noodles was really huge. It was nice chatting with her after so long; we didn't really finish catching up during reunion dinner on CNY Eve.

Today, I knocked off early to rest at home. I didn't feel very good. For one, I was having sneezing fits and, halfway through a lesson today, I could feel my throat giving way. So, yes, I'm losing my voice again - for the third time this year. I seem to have the tendency to lose my voice every 2 weeks. =\

Well, I'll be knocking off at my usual time (which is considered late in my profession) the next two days. Choir practices always end after 6 pm on Thursdays and I'm going to try to finish all my work for this week on Friday - before an all-girls' night out and, the following day, an overdue CNY visitation and a salsa class.

Hm, I must not forget the terribly overdue write-up too. That will be my primary task for Sunday - a good time to sit down, reflect and write.

Right now, though, I'm going to bed. It's going to be a long day tomorrow. Good night, world!

Nothing Much

2009-02-03T22:46:00.005+08:00

It's been a little over a week since my last entry but nothing much happened.

The CNY break went a little better than expected, though it was rather tiring due to a full day of visiting. I wonder if I should be around for next year's CNY. :P I'll have to think about it next year. Hah.

I ate more than usual this CNY. Somehow, I couldn't stop stuffing myself with the goodies. Maybe it was because of recent weight loss. Unfortunately, I didn't get to eat a good piece of pineapple tart until I went C's new place with HL on Friday. We were supposed to have dinner together, but we ended up chatting and chomping on the CNY tidbits before the meal. HAHA. They were very addictive. Thank goodness I declined C's generosity to bring home some of the tidbits! ;p

After the long CNY weekend, the week at work that followed was rather short, so time seems to have flown by in a flash. It's already almost the end of the 9th day of CNY.

Speaking of which, I heard that 1B actually prepared a little surprise for me today during EL lesson. However, because I had to attend a dialogue session at CCAB, I missed their little surprise. I was told that they were disappointed when I didn't turn up for class. :O Ah well, it's a pity. But I still appreciate their efforts and kind thoughts. :)

Right, this is one of those days when I have much on my mind but can't seem to type out my thoughts. I'm probably tired. Well, till the next time I blog again then.

My Precious MP3 Files

2009-01-25T02:42:00.021+08:00

Yes, yes. I'm still awake at this unearthly hour - thanks to the long nap I had this afternoon. ;p

Other than clearing up the mess in my room, I've been trying to organise my MP3 files too. I think I have so many 'new' songs to catch up with that I don't have to buy anymore for the next 3 months. Ha!

I still have three albums left to sort out, so I'll leave them till tomorrow. What the heck, it's already 'tomorrow'. -_-

I had a quick preview of all the MP3 files sorted out and I must say I'm really mesmerised by the original soundtrack of 바람의 화원 (The Painter Of The Wind). I've yet to finish watching the serial because the links for the last 2 episodes are broken. It's a really great drama with fantastic music, though I never got used to seeing Moon Geun Young and Park Shin Yang as a couple. Still, certain scenes were hilarious because nobody (other than her foster family) knew she was a female in disguise. The plot is really intricate and well-written.

Here are the first 4 songs in the album. The instrumentals are really charming, but there are just too many to upload. ;p

Mixed Emotions Towards CNY 2009

2009-01-24T08:38:00.007+08:00

I'm experiencing mixed feelings towards CNY 2009 at this moment.

On one hand, I'm glad that the CNY holiday is here. We can all have a break from the endless piles of work. Although it's been barely a month since the school term started, I'm already feeling exhausted.

On the other, I dread the CNY visits to the relatives, especially the never-ending questions about my life. I know they mean no harm and just wish to make conversation (to be polite; they probably aren't really interested in my life), but the questioning really gets on my nerves. For the past 5 years, I've been wondering the purpose of all this CNY visiting. It's supposed to be a time when we catch up with our relatives. We ought to be looking forward to this, but why am I not?

Then again, with relatives whom I'm closer to and more comfortable with, it's a different story altogether. I'll be happy to attend any family gathering at Aunt B's. In fact, I'm looking forward to the reunion dinner with my mom's side of the family this year. It's been a long while since I last saw my closest cousin, XR, and I'm sure we've got lots to talk about. Come to think of it, I flew over to HK more often than I saw her in 2008! :O

I guess that's what happens when everyone's all older and busy with work and personal commitments.

In recent years, I've been wishing my family would do away with the tradition of visiting relatives. Yet, knowing the significance of CNY visiting in our Chinese community, I can't help but go along with it.

I miss those years when CNY was so fun - the red packets, the glorious food and crazy games with my cousins. But all these have become memories now for they no longer hold the same meaning in my heart today.

Ah well. I didn't mean to sound so gloomy. After all, CNY is coming.

Hm, I think I should take things one step at a time. Since I'm looking forward to the reunion dinner, I ought to focus on it and be happy about it first. Hopefully, I'll feel more enthusiastic about CNY visiting after that. Ha!

On Form Teachership And Such

2009-01-17T06:10:00.009+08:00

It's been absolutely crazy ever since the school term started. I'd actually missed one weekend of blogging.

Still, I'm thankful that I wasn't given a form class this year. Not that I don't like to have a class to take charge of (or to boss over! HAHA), but with a form class, I can't run away from handling all sorts of administrative duties.

Over the years, when asked how much time does a form teacher spend handling all these, I found it impossible to calculate. There are just too many things! Form teachers spend time chasing their form classes for all kinds of forms (that's why the label 'FORM teacher'), payment of money (fees, courses, subscription of reading materials, handbooks, magazines and what not) and counselling their charges on an ad hoc basis (because there's no telling when a pupil will suddenly turn 'emo' or go 'crazy' in school). All these little things somehow add up and it's honestly too difficult to calculate the exact amount of time invested.

Then again, I do miss having a form class to go to especially during morning assembly - taking their attendance and making sure that they are all properly attired. Yes, I'm one of those anal teachers who hunt their pupils down if they have no name tags. I fine them for being sloppy and forgetful and all the money collected goes to their class fund, which usually grows into quite a nice amount for their final-year party after the national examinations.

In any case, now that I don't have a form class to look after, I have a lot more time to plan more meaningful lessons for my subject classes. It's been a good 3 years since I did any thorough lesson planning - being so overwhelmed with all the administrative work. I've arrived at the conclusion that I'm simply not cut out to handle administrative matters - no matter how hard I try!

I guess, to me, nothing is more important than the cognitive and character development of my pupils. This is not to say administrative work isn't important at all. (It must exist for a school to run properly, otherwise no one - pupils, teachers and non-teaching staff alike - can benefit.) It's just that it doesn't bring me the same level of joy or satisfaction I have when I see my pupils learning something new in class, or when I manage to convince them to do something after counselling them.

Honestly, I wish there were more administrative support for form teachers. If lawyers can receive administrative support from 'shared' secretaries (eg. 1 secretary to serve 3 or 4 lawyers), why can't it be done in the teaching profession? Will transferring all our administrative duties to the secretary make us any less of a form teacher (or just any teacher for that matter)?

Honestly, I feel form teachers are more than just form-cum-cash collectors. They are really the ones who have to take the school's vision, mission and core values and break them down into digestible bits for their form classes, so that the pupils will grow to become what the school has envisioned them to be upon their graduation. They are the ones who guide the pupils in setting their class motto, set the expectations and class's tone of environment, develop potential leaders and discipline the pupils when necessary. I remember there were times when subject teachers of my form class gave me feedback on the class's misbehaviour. Subsequently, they would get a second dosage of disciplining from me.

So, really, because the administrative workload is ever-increasing, it's high time schools started employing personal assistants for form teachers (say, 1 PA to 4 FTs) and teachers without form classes (1 PA to 7 teachers). It creates new jobs for the country too. And all we need are people who are organised and who can liaise with the administrators in the school's general office on our behalf. At the same time, the administrators in the general office won't have such a hard time chasing teachers to submit their form classes' forms and money. Doesn't it make everyone happier? All teachers can plan fun and meaningful lessons and deliver them effectively, and all form teachers can build better rapport with their form classes without having to get drowned in the sea of administrative responsibilities.

Only then, we can all talk about work-life balance.

Most importantly, teachers will no longer be described as grumpy!

A New Year, A New Start

2009-01-04T20:28:00.006+08:00

New Year's Day came and went, as did the first day of school. Lessons were generally alright, until recess time. Because the canteen (as well as hall and administrative block, for that matter) is under massive renovation, packed food was provided for all pupils and staff. Pupils had to eat their packed food in the classrooms, so it was quite chaotic during recess.

My timetable went haywire, too, due to some last minute requests and changes. Anyway, I survived the first day. It went better than I'd expected honestly. Week 1 of school starts officially tomorrow, so I'm bracing myself for more craziness in the weeks to come. :O

2009 is here and will see many major changes in not only my life but some of my friends' as well. A couple of my friends are already experiencing these changes, moving on to the next phase of their lives. I'm kind of in limbo, still waiting for answers, though I've already done what I could and all I can do now are pray and hope for the best.

Looking back at 2008, I must say out of the 2 resolutions I had set for myself, I managed to achieve only 1! I think I was not successful with the second one because I didn't make it specific enough. In any case, I'm going to continue with these 2 resolutions, and include a third and new one, for 2009.

1) To lose weight the healthy way through diet and exercise instead of stress at work.
2) To clear and pack my tables at work and at home every week (in an attempt to cultivate some orderliness in my life).
3) To finish reading at least one book in a month (so many books bought but unread yet).

Well, let's see how I fare 1 year from now.

A new year, a new start. Here's wishing one and all, A HAPPY 2009. :D

Beethoven Virus

2008-12-29T22:28:00.007+08:00

베토벤 바이러스 or Beethoven Virus is another K-drama which I enjoyed thoroughly for its music, storyline (though certain episodes baffled me), the characters and excellent acting from the cast. It portrays the passion a group of musicians (professionals and amateurs) has for classical music. An arrogant world-class orchestra conductor meets an unlikely motley crew (an undiscovered talented policeman, a soon-to-be-deaf civil servant with undying love for music, a poor rebellious teenager, an old grandpa suffering from mild dementia, a timid housewife who feels suppressed and unappreciated by her family, another civil servant who faces the pressure of feeding his family, a crude and impulsive cabaret trumpeter and a few others).

Even before watching the serial, I could already envision the explosive sparks between the proud perfectionist conductor and the musically-clumsy members in his orchestra. Many times, I felt as incredulous as the musicians themselves whenever the conductor disdainfully hurled insults at them. But, for some reason, I don't hate the character. I thought Kim Myeong Min really portrayed the role of the conductor very convincingly and with such incredible charisma. (Gosh, how is it that these Korean male actors have so much charisma?!) Even though this character is so cold and painfully direct with his comments, there were times when I had to laugh-out-loud at his words and the tone used. There was this scene where the talented policeman was suddenly very nice and polite to the conductor. The conductor eyed the policeman suspiciously and muttered in his usual aristocratic way, "What is this? You are being so nice that I do not know how to act." I was so tickled by his baffled honesty (his choice of words) which was delightfully mismatched with the aristocratic stiffness in his voice that I had to burst out laughing.

What I like most about the serial is its (albeit cliched) moral behind all the high-tension drama: the persevering pursuit of what is important and meaningful in one's life. Despite being constantly insulted by the razor-tongued and seemingly insensitive conductor, through much fiery friction, the motley crew quickly recognises and acknowledges his ability and charisma but takes a longer while to come to respect him as a person. Every time an individual faces an obstacle, it is the 'evil' conductor who, in his outwardly arrogant and uncaring ways, encourages the member to persevere. They gradually realise his bark is worse than his bite (which, in my opinion, is bad enough).

While the main characters seem to have more air time, I also love the fact that the supporting characters are not hastily developed and are given the time to properly grow throughout the serial as we watch them get torn by life's struggles and their passion for classical music.

The technical aspects of classical music are also dealt with in the drama. I don't profess to know much about classical music (it's been more than a decade since I last played a classical piece on my piano), so I'm not going to comment. If anything, I thought the use of classical music jargon in the dialogues made the drama very realistic. These technical terms roll out from Kim Myeong Min's tongue so quickly and as-a-matter-of-factly that at times I felt like I was back at lessons with my piano teacher.

The classical songs featured in the drama are mostly familiar favourites from Mozart, Beethoven, Faure, Tchaikovsky (his popular Piano Concerto No. 1 is my favourite!) and several other famous composers. I've been enjoying the soundtrack for its classical selection and a couple of the contemporary ballads. Hoho. It's really not too bad.

All in all, I feel this is one of the better K-dramas I've seen. :D

Love Marriage

2008-12-27T17:47:00.004+08:00

I really enjoyed watching 연애결혼 or Love Marriage. It's one of those crazy romantic comedies which makes one laugh and tear. There is no true villain, except for the one rival lawyer who didn't really appear much in the serial. It's a pretty fun drama which looks at how various factors are important for a marriage to work out in Korea - whether through match-making or otherwise for singles and divorcees. Interesting stuff, really. ;)

Best of all, I really enjoyed the soundtrack. A couple of the songs are really upbeat and one just can't help feeling cheerful upon listening to it. As usual, I can't understand the Korean lyrics, except catch a few common phrases. But as we all know, music transcends all languages; the mood/meaning of the music can be felt through the melody and rhythm.

Heh, I think I may just watch this drama a second time! xD

Spontaneous Fun

2008-12-25T20:43:00.001+08:00

I spent the last few hours of Christmas Eve and first few hours of Christmas Day with friends, skipping the dinner at Aunt B's place for once.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy our annual gathering there, but this year I had this greater desire to be with my friends. Maybe it was because Mel flew off on Christmas Eve and I feared 'losing' more of my friends.

Anyways, it was pretty spontaneous fun. We watched Bedtime Stories at AMK Hub (thanks to Joce for buying the tickets) and subsequently had seafood for late dinner. I had a great time stuffing my face (OK, I know I was supposed to start my bread-and-water diet, but hey it was Christmas Eve!), guffawing at the silly jokes and simply talking.

After dinner, 2 went home while 3 of us went over to Mag & Zhiwei's place to harass them and mess up their place. HAHA. We met Abi at the void deck and went up together. We ate again (Korean snacks from Mag and Zhiwei's trip to Korea) and had red wine. I only had a sip since I had the car with me. We watched Red Cliff (WOOTS! 2 movies on the same night!). I've always enjoyed watching epics. Well, whatever critics say about Red Cliff, it doesn't bother me. I await Red Cliff 2!

We didn't leave until around 3.30am. By the time I got home and slept, it was a little over an hour later. I truly miss such spontaneous fun gathering with friends. I wonder when we'll get to do this again...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! =)

HK Trip II

2008-12-23T23:46:00.003+08:00

JM's wedding was lovely. My only regret is that I didn't take any pictures of it with my camera!!! SIGH. How goondu of me. :/

Anyway, it was quite an experience. On one hand, I was stressed out, fearing that I'd somehow make a mistake and ruin my dear friend's wedding. On the other, I enjoyed being part of the wedding entourage, giving whatever help and support I could for her.

I burst my budget during this trip. Haha. Let's see... I bought 2 shawls because the ones I had didn't match my dresses for the wedding and were too thin to keep me warm. We went for manicure and/or pedicure too. There was also the 2-night stay at the hotel (supposedly a 5-star resort) and because I was so hungry during the 1st night, I ordered food via room service (more $$$) and even took a couple of snacks from the mini-bar! And 5 minutes just before I boarded the plane, I splurged on something that was on impulse and totally uncharacteristic of me. :P I think I've gone most mad. Must be the overdose of champagne I had at the wedding that was working overtime. Heh.

It was definitely a good thing that I didn't buy more things. For one, my luggage wouldn't have been able to take in everything. I'd brought along a lot more things for this second trip in view of the wedding.

Alright, this is a brief entry. I'm too exhausted to blog more...

Choir's Trip To HK

2008-12-15T22:39:00.067+08:00

Another 18 hours or so and I'm flapping off to HK again. Heh. Don't I sound like an air-stewardess for once? I'd probably be the most unglamorous one ever! HAHA!

The trip with Choir wasn't too bad, except for certain issues. I could also tell the pupils felt that I was being too strict and all with them. I don't deny it - because it was for their own safety. They have no idea the kind of stress teachers experience when we bring them out on a trip overseas. Would it be safe enough for them? What about the younger ones, especially the Sec 1s? Could we trust the older ones to look out for the younger ones? And when my dad sent me a message via SMS about the outbreak of bird flu, my anxiety increased. Thank God for keeping everyone safe and sound really.

The performance at Disneyland started off a little shaky but they recovered well. The combined singing with GESS was great too. JM came to watch them sing and even took photos and recorded excerpts of their singing. On the whole, I think Ai Ming was rather pleased with their performance.

The school exchange was rather interesting. This was my first time seeing a choir exchange. I thought our choir sang very well - in fact a lot better than the performance at Disney! On second thoughts, it could be because the exchange was held indoors while at Disneyland, they were singing in the open which is a lot harder to sound good. Here are some pictures of what took place at the exchange. :)

Of course, other than work, we also had time for some fun. I enjoyed my time with the kids at Disneyland. Sitting on the carousel was really nostalgic while the rides (plural, because we went twice!) at Space Mountain was really thrilling. I realised that the trick to really enjoy such rides is to allow your body to relax. The more tensed up you are, the scarier it is. Haha. At the end of it all, Disneyland presented a fantastic finale of fireworks. I was furiously snapping my camera THE WHOLE TIME. HAHA. It probably would have been better if I'd recorded it instead. Anyway, here are the pictures. ;D

That's all, folks. :)

Look To Jesus

2008-12-06T08:49:00.003+08:00

Decisions to be made, answers to wait for... and anxiety develops - as if I haven't got enough anxiety to handle. :(

Lately, I am very bogged down by pressures and expectations of society, at work and even family. And it's one of those times when even after a long chat with a friend the gloom still looms. Sometimes, I think society has taught us to plan too much. When Plan A fails, there has to be a Plan B or even Plan C. How exhausting it is to try to anticipate what may happen all the time.

If our Plan A = God's Plan for us, He'd have thought of all the back-up for us, wouldn't He? (Of course, this doesn't mean that we just sit and wait for things to happen.) Then again, in our moment of weakness, doubt plays with our mind and it's so hard to hold on to His promises.

I was flipping my bible and Isaiah 40:28-31 caught my attention:

28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and His understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

So, what's the point of worrying and wallowing eh? Since I have to wait for certain answers, I should just commit everything into my Lord Jesus' hands and worship Him as I am!

WITH ALL I AM
Into Your hands
I commit again
With all I am, for You, Lord
You hold my world
In the palm of Your hand
And I am Yours forever

Jesus I believe in You
Jesus I belong to You
You’re the reason that I live
The reason that I sing
With all I am

I’ll walk with You
Wherever You go
Through tears and joy
I’ll trust in You
And I will live
In all of Your ways
And Your promises, forever

Jesus I believe in You
Jesus I belong to You
You’re the reason that I live
The reason that I sing
Jesus I believe in You
Jesus I belong to You
You’re the reason that I live
The reason that I sing
With all I am

I will worship
I will worship You

Double The Drama

2008-12-01T19:14:00.005+08:00

Recently, I finished watching TVB serial, Moonlight Resonance (or 溏心風暴之家好月圓). I thought it was even better than Heart of Greed (溏心風暴). Haha, shall not spoil the fun for those who haven't seen both. ;p

As with the prequel, there were lots of moral values behind the story. For me, Moonlight Resonance was double of everything compared to Heart of Greed. At some points, it was ridiculously hilarious and at some others, so painfully tragic. One may think there's simply too much drama going on for one serial (after all it's 40 episodes). Then again, what's a drama serial without all the drama? Heh heh...

Hey... I just realised something. I didn't even get to eat a single piece of mooncake during Mid-Autumn Festival this year!

So Close (2003)

2008-11-25T13:53:00.003+08:00

It's not a very realistic movie, but I love the action, cool hunk (Song Seung Heon) and hot babes. A pity Song Seung Heon played a supporting role here. ;\

Wretched Work Week

2008-11-22T16:28:00.006+08:00

Yes, work this week was utterly wretched. I was hacked into bits. Totally. So crucified and minced was I that I just felt immune to subsequent slaughtering. Anymore sarcasm or rebuke coming my way had better surface now before I stop feeling immune and start retaliating.

Thank God for my Choir pupils though. They are my motivation this holiday when I return to school to work. Yes, you read me right. They are my motivation. Even though I scold them all the time for being ill-disciplined and talkative, I'm trying to enjoy my paper work for their sake.

Thank God, too, for great girl friends. Even though the dinner with Mel and her beau didn't materialise eventually, Gina, Joce and I still met up. It's been almost 6 months since we last saw Gina! We just couldn't stop talking. There was so much to share and listen! I'd thought we'd be done by 11pm latest - since Gina had to help out at Priscilla's wedding early today and I had to be in school by 8am. However, we were still talking at 1am. HAHA. I really enjoyed last night's meet-up. When will it happen again?

Open House went better than I'd expected - for Choir at least. In fact, I thought the performing arts were all pretty cool. Even though the sound system was bad, I think Choir didn't fare too badly - though there was certainly much room for improvement. I'm just glad most of them were responsible enough to turn up for their duty slot as assigned or volunteered.

Oh, and I forgot something important: photo-taking! I'd even brought my camera, ready to snap pictures of them at work! Blast my brains... I must have been more stressed than I'd realised.

Anyways, THANK GOD IT'S THE WEEKEND! =)

A New Inclusion

2008-11-18T16:21:00.002+08:00

'Meh' is officially a word. Haha! Check out the article below. ;p

'Meh': new word for indifference enters English dictionary

"Meh", a word which indicates a lack of interest or enthusiasm, became the latest addition to the Collins English Dictionary on Monday.

The word, which beat hundreds of other suggestions from members of the public, will feature in the 30th anniversary edition of the dictionary, which is to be published next year.

Though the word apparently originates from North America, Collins said it was now widely used on the Internet, and was increasingly seen in British spoken English.

The dictionary entry for "meh" will say it can be used as an interjection to indicate indifference or boredom, as an adjective to describe something as boring or mediocre, or to show an individual is apathetic or unimpressed.

The word was popularised by the US comedy animation series "The Simpsons", where characters Bart and Lisa use it to express indifference when their father Homer suggests a day trip.

It was submitted by Erin Whyte from Nottingham, central England, and a panel of Collins language experts singled it out from the hundreds of other submissions because of its frequency of use in modern English.

"This is a new interjection from the US that seems to have inveigled its way into common speech over here," said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries.

"It shows people are increasingly writing in a register somewhere in between spoken and written English."

Other words submitted to Collins's campaign -- which was launched in June and called on members of the public to suggest words they used in everyday English -- were jargonaut (a fan of jargon); frenemy (an enemy disguised as a friend) and huggles (a hybrid of hugs and snuggles).

Busy Weeks

2008-11-15T06:42:00.004+08:00

It's been a busy week.

After being away from work for so many days last week, I came back to see most of my colleagues' tables cleared. They were all packed and ready to move off to the temporary staffroom! I hadn't even started throwing away all the unwanted stuffs yet. I could only start clearing up on Tuesday because Choir ended after 6pm on Monday.

I love throwing away things. It's so therapeutic! It was difficult to decide what to throw at first because everything seemed so important. But once I convinced myself that I didn't need those things in the next 6 months or that I hadn't even touched them in the past year, in they went to the trash bags. Very soon, I was happily tossing items into the recycled bin and trash bags. Haha.

Once all the junk was gone on Tuesday, I started packing on Wednesday. It took me two days, but when SP saw my table on Thursday, she said, "You're really very fast lor!" LOL. I guess I was. (; It was fun clearing up. I think I have to start clearing up my room at home too. HAH. It's in such a mighty mess. ;p

The past 2 days were absolutely crazy because of preparation for Graduation Day. We had rehearsal on Thursday, and I had people chasing me to make corrections for the SGCs, to submit important information for Choir's HK trip, for Choir's plans for Open House next Saturday... I was going crazyyyyyy!

Thankfully, the Graduation Day Concert & Ceremony went well. The pupils behaved better than expected (except for the 4NA, as usual). I thought everything was on schedule. Perhaps the only messy part was towards the end when the classes went up to receive their leaving certificates from the form teachers. Classes who'd already received their certificates were rather restless waiting for other classes to receive theirs. The lunch reception was a bit chaotic too. The pupils wanted to take photographs and all, so it was rather difficult to get them all to the canteen at the same time for the refreshments. Still, everyone managed to sit down and eat the food in the canteen eventually.

My 4H girls were very sweet; they bought me a stalk of rose each. I think I'm going to miss them all... even the naughty ones. Haha. Even though I disciplined them more than anything else, there were good times. Yeah, there were actually DAYS when I could teach them... they were all so angelic and eager to learn. It was rare, but I enjoyed those lessons. I'm happy that they are able to move on to the next stage of their lives now. Judging from how the ex-pupils are coping now, I'm sure this batch will do just as well in life. They always do - somehow. :)

Heh, I think I've been coping pretty well for the last 2 years' on Graduation Day. No tears! Phews! ;p

The next event will be the Open House on 22 November. Sigh. And there's the farewell dinner with Mel on Friday night. Apparently, Sebastian will be there. I think she wants to go clubbing after dinner. I won't be able to join in because I've asked Choir to report at 9 am on Saturday for the Open House. Just as well... probably only the couples will be going. Hehs.

It's going to be another busy week because of the Open House. There are still a lot of things to settle for the HK trip too. I'm starting to panic already. Haha. I think I've been panicking quite a bit since July. Four months of stress is no joke. I've actually lost some weight. I wish this was done the healthier way, but I'm still glad I managed to lose some mass. ;p Hopefully, I can lose some more; I need to fit into the evening gown my bestie's wedding! That reminds me... I've yet to shop for a white dress for the day wear. What a headache.

Alrighty, time to run. A busy, busy morning ahead!

A Terrible Week

2008-11-09T23:23:00.004+08:00

I fell extremely ill last week and I have absolutely no idea why. My doctor didn't say much either but just prescribed me the usual kind of flu medication. There was one particular morning when I couldn't even get out of bed. When I tried to sit up, I fell back again. I tried again and the same thing happened. I'd never felt so ill before. I couldn't even sit up on my bed! o_O

Visiting the toilet was a hassle. When I finally managed to stand on my feet, I realised I couldn't even walk properly; I was swaying, ready to collapse into a heap on the floor. Somehow I managed to stagger to the wall for support and inched my way slowly to the bathroom. -_-

The hammering in my head wouldn't stop either. I'd never had such bad migraine. There was this constant bashing at the back of my brains. I must have drifted in and out of consciousness.

By the time I was conscious and able to sit up without falling back, the sky was already dark.

The next two days, the fever came in the mornings, late afternoon and night.

It was a terrible week. I just spent my time sleeping and waking up for meals and medication.

Thank God, I feel SO MUCH BETTER and could attend service this morning. What I experienced this week has made me realise that I shouldn't take my health for granted. My immunity system must have had hit at an all-time low this week. I'd better start sleeping before midnight from now onwards. -_-

Yes, I shall in fact endeavour to sleep by 11 pm the latest from tomorrow onwards.

Reaching For You

2008-11-03T19:31:00.003+08:00

These days, I just want to sing to Jesus.

Here's my all-time favourite worship song. :)

REACHING FOR YOU
I can't believe the way
Your love has got a hold on me
Each morning I wake to find You near
You lift me above my fears
And set my feet on solid ground
All of my days belong to You

And I breathe in Your breath of life that fills my heart
You are my all consuming fire

I stand here before You
In wide opened wonder
Amazed at the glory of You
The power of heaven
Revealing Your purpose in me
As I'm reaching for You

An Applish Affair

2008-10-31T20:36:00.002+08:00

'Tis an applish affair: I've been sleeping with my MacBook for the past few nights. LOL!

The Apple Of My Eye

2008-10-28T00:24:00.003+08:00

Yes, the holidays have arrived. More so for the secondary school pupils I suppose. We teachers still have to report for work.

Thankfully, there was a long weekend. I attended service with Joce, Mel and her sister. The worship was great. I hadn't worshipped like that for quite a while. I wished the worship session was longer then.

After our separate lunches, we met up at Funan to buy our MacBooks. Mel bought her white MacBook at a great deal while I bought the latest version. This is probably an early Christmas present for myself. Heh heh. We were really happy with our purchases. LOL. And yes, I'm blogging now from my MacBook.

It's really easy to use. No wonder more and more people are using Apple laptops these days. They look good, are cheaper and really simple to use. I only have one complaint: an Apple laptop is quite heavy! But that's because it's made of a solid piece of aluminium. Apparently, it's considered light already. But I guess my Acer laptop is smaller and much lighter, so I guess I have to start getting used to a slightly bigger and heavier laptop.

I don't think I would ever want to use any other sort of latops again, really. Haha!

I spent most of my weekend exploring my new toy, the Apple of my eye at the moment. ;D

Zigzaggy Thoughts

2008-10-19T20:29:00.007+08:00

Woots! I finally did it! After years of thinking and re-thinking. Finally... finally... finally! Ha!

Now, I can just pray for God to open the door of opportunity for me. :D

Friday and Saturday were fun. Joce and I stayed over at Mel's place, watching SATC. Haha. We only managed to finish watching Season 4 in 24 hours. How slow! ;O

I think I was the only one who could endure the marathon. Mel and Joce zonked out by 2 plus I think. I persevered until about 4 plus before zoning out. And then, I heard someone coming downstairs to iron clothes. It was Imelisa. The poor girl had to iron her clothes in the dark because Joce and I were snoozing in the living room. A while later though, Imelisa told me we could rest in Mel's room. Apparently, Mel'd decided to sleep with her sisters in the other room. I scuttled upstairs and promptly went into deep slumber on the bed. Haha.

I didn't wake up until noon. Such decadence! We went for brunch at 1 plus, shopped for junk and grocery, and came back to the apartment to finish up Season 4. Mel cooked dinner. As usual, her pasta was fantastic. Sebastian is one lucky guy. Joce and I left right after dinner because she had to meet her beau while I had a hot date with Mr Splitting Headache. It was awful. This is what insufficient sleep does to me. I concussed by midnight after I got home.

We may have SATC Marathon II next weekend. Hopefully, Gina can join us this time round. Hopefully, she'll have an easier time at work this coming week. Hopefully... Sigh. Oh well.

I wonder if Van has popped a girl or a boy. It's a pity I can't fly to Beijing to visit her now. Anyway, she said she'd inform me once she's delivered. Since there isn't any news from her, she's probably still waiting.

Dum dee dum... I feel a load has been lifted off from my shoulders after what I have done. Gosh, now I can't wait for December to come. By the time the news arrives, I should be in Hong Kong. Gah!

Hm, hey, I've got mail! Haha... this is such a random, zigzaggy entry. ;p Ciao!

Another Song

2008-10-11T23:58:00.004+08:00

I haven't got much to blog about lately, not because nothing has been happening. On the contrary, I've been so busy. I shall not say too much about anything.

Anyway, I've been listening to Miriam Yeung's latest album lately. Here's one song which I really enjoy. :D

杨千嬅 - 捞月亮的人
作词：林若宁
作曲：陈台证

泪光装饰夜晚
路灯点缀感叹
列车之上看彼此失散
你面孔早已刻进代官山

夜色即将逝去
月色握在手里
幸福关系也因此握碎
你掠影只有铺满湖水里

月半弯淡如逝水一般映照你下落
陕路短走过璀璨情境渐渐微薄
让背影荡游湖水深处拥抱我月光
岁月短遗下一片弱质纤纤愉快感觉

雾色安抚月缺
大街依旧积雪
甚麽心事也许不必说
继续等等某一个人开脱

月半弯淡如逝水一般映照你下落
陕路短走过璀璨情境渐渐微薄
让背影荡游湖水深处拥抱我月光
岁月短遗下一片弱质纤纤愉快感觉

月半弯淡如逝水一般映照我愿望
你样子反照优美湖水未及捞获
下辈子顺从回忆牵引走进老地方
你是否同样身处月色之中像我瓢泊

A Cute Song

2008-10-05T23:08:00.002+08:00

This is a really cute song. Something I wouldn't like. But, it's really catchy. And it's Korean. ;p

Saturation Point

2008-09-28T09:20:00.004+08:00

I think I've reached saturation point where my job is concerned. Sometimes, I wonder if I still enjoy it.

The paper work has never been enjoyable, but pupils and colleagues made it all worthwhile. These days though, I don't feel that same satisfaction - somehow. Perhaps, I'm simply burnt-out.

Pupils and colleagues come and go.

I wonder when it will be my turn?

I guess I'm still waiting for God's timing. I have been praying and seeking. I'm glad to say I have been doing something about it/them. HL is right. I should identify the issues that are bothering me and deal with them. Then set some targets and the steps to reach the targets. I guess I always knew, but I just needed to experience the saturation point to be motivated enough to do something about it.

I must say, it's taken quite long for me to reach this saturation point. I probably had a high threshold for whatever nonsense I'd been going through. Hehs. Or, it could be that I was so used to being in that situation that to even take a step towards something better caused me much fear and trepidation.

Not anymore. God has shown me much and I cannot deny reality and the need to be true to myself anymore.

And now, upon saturation point, I bide my time.

:)

'New' Words

2008-09-20T19:38:00.006+08:00

I received the following via email and thought I'd share it here. I nearly fell off my chair guffawing at some of the 'new' words. Hilarious. And very clever. (Note the spelling of the words to appreciate the wit.)

The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an a**hole.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

Rants And Thoughts

2008-09-14T09:50:00.010+08:00

What a week.

I had a serious allergic reaction and recovered. You could read the boring details in my previous entry if you want.

The next day when I returned to work, I went ballistic on practically every class. I don't understand what is it with pupils (and, at times, parents) these days. When a piece of instruction is given to them and they refuse to follow it, they get upset when the teacher scolds them. It's our fault when we give them work to do. It's also our fault when we don't. Oh, come on! Stop all this finger-pointing and GROW UP. Teachers have a mission here and it's to educate the younger generation. Since when has it degenerated to becoming 'everything is our fault'?! If you think educating the young is easy, or that you can do a better job - please, by all means, you're most welcome to educate them yourself. Handling one child is definitely a lot easier than handling a class of 40 pupils.

Thankfully, Friday was a lot better (TGIF!) and I managed to have some time to catch up with a couple of colleagues. I love Fridays, really. Ha, then again, who doesn't?

I managed to clear some work yesterday before I watched Wall-E with C and N. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Although the first half-an-hour resembled Cast Away (according to C) because there was hardly any talking, I suspect the quirky Wall-E quickly charmed his way into the hearts of the audience with his human-like personality. Despite the wholesomeness of the movie though, the themes explored are deep universal issues, open to various interpretations.

On the theme of saving the environment, I was struck by how extreme the writer of the script has portrayed the future of Earth. Also, would humans really abandon the planet which has been our home since forever simply because it cannot sustain life anymore? What an unsettling thought. It's like discarding the history of man, our identity and how we came to be.

Then, on the issue of quality and meaning of life, would our decendants end up obese, useless and utterly dependent on computers and robots as illustrated in the movie? Does technology ultimately better our lives or cripple us, turning us into anti-social beings concerned only about satisfying our senses? Despite the comfortable, clean and cool hi-tech life on the Axiom, the people don't have any real goals because they have been living and surviving this way for the past 700 years since the ship took off from Earth. Without goals and dreams to spur us on, are we really living beings? Some people might feel it's okay as long as there's no suffering and everyone's happy. I must admit that the population on the Axiom appear blissful. But how would that make us any different from robots? Humans are so capable of feeling and expressing a wide spectrum of emotions.

I remember being disturbed when the captain of the Axiom, his curiosity piqued, started asking the ship's computer to define 'sea', 'dance' and 'sky'. It is possible that whatever true reality our senses can experience right now might one day be displaced by virtual reality, which sometimes appear better than the real thing. Sometimes, I suspect people find virtual reality 'better' because this is the closest sort of experience man can create in comparison to what God (or, if you're agnostic, Nature) has created.

It was cartoon but there were so many thoughts running amok in my head. Well, it wasn't just any animated movie. I think it makes a fantastic teaching tool. There is so much to explore. Haha, I guess that's the teacher in me talking. 真的是三句不离本行。Well, not literally, of course. ;p

After the movie, dinner was at Book Cafe and we settled down to do some work. I left in a while though because I'd arranged to meet my bestie for drinks. We walked over to one of the restaurant pubs by the river and decided to take a table outdoors. It was a breezy night, so the puffing from other patrons didn't really irritate me as much as how it usually does. The whole area was rather noisy initially as pubs were showing the soccer match on huge screens. We were there for a few hours, joking and laughing, talking and lapsing into bouts of silences occasionally when we were engrossed in our own thoughts. We left at about 1 am and she sent me home. I'll see her again in December, days before her wedding in Hong Kong. Sometimes, I'm amazed how we have managed to keep this friendship going since primary 5 because for the past decade or so she's been living in UK, USA and now HK. Hehs.

As you can see, my weekend has been rather pensive. Well, not for long. I have to start work soon and, in the evening, I'll be attending J's baby girl's one-year old birthday party. Then it's back to work tomorrow. Weekends are always so fleeting, don't you think?

At The Cross

2008-09-10T20:55:00.006+08:00

It's amazing how a time of worshipping the Lord can rejuvenate and bring new hope to the human spirit.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your gift of worship. Thank You for all the beautiful songs, especially the meaningful lyrics.

AT THE CROSS
Oh Lord, You've searched me
You know my way
Even when I fail You
I know You love me

Your holy presence
Surrounding me
In every season
I know You love me

Chorus
At the cross I bow my knee
Where Your blood was shed for me
There's no greater love than this
You have overcome the grave
Your glory fills the highest place
What can separate me now

You go before me
You shield my way
Your hand upholds me
I know You love me

Chorus (2x)

Bridge
You tore the veil
You made a way
When You said that 'It is done.'
(2x)

And when the earth fades
Falls from my eyes
And You stand before me
I know You love me
I know You love me

Chorus (2x)

Bridge (2x)

A Million BITES

2008-09-10T13:57:00.005+08:00

Yesterday was horrible. I felt like a million bites were all over me - worse than chicken pox. The doctor I saw last night advised me to try to recall all the food I ate since Monday, otherwise the allergy might return. So I did. Here's what I recalled after much pondering.

On Monday, I had beryani for breakfast. Lunch was yong tau foo - Japanese mushrooms, cheese tofu, fishball, meatball, dumplings and loads of vegetables. Dinner was at McDonald's, where I ate the McWings meal. Oh, I think I snacked a little on some nuts in the evening as well.

On Tuesday, I woke up with my body feeling mildly itchy. I thought it might be stings from an insect, so I didn't dwell on it. Somehow, I managed through the day at work without feeling much discomfort.

In school, I ate a chicken bun and 2 pieces of siew mai for breakfast. Then, it was packed rice for lunch - with a sunny side-up egg, stir-fried cabbage and green vegetables. I usually ask for my eggs to be at least 80-90% cooked, if not completely. Yesterday's egg was a little too runny for my liking. So that was something out of the ordinary.

Back home in the afternoon, I noticed the itch had worsened and promptly took a shower. I felt a little better. But, a couple of hours later, I realised I had been scratching for a while and noticed rashes appearing on my arms and legs. Still thinking it could be stings from bugs, I snacked on some nuts just before dinner.

Dinner was tung hoon soup with fish, prawns, fishballs and vegetables. Before I got started on dinner, I showed my mom the rashes on my skin. She was horrified and declared I had food allergy, muttering some medical name which was utterly beyond me. ;\ So I dumped the prawns in her bowl before eating my food. Apparently, seafood and eggs would exacerbate the condition. Nuts, too, I heard.

Still, the nuts and egg which I ate for the past 2 days didn't quite explain my rashes. I've been eating them regularly, and I'd never suffered from anything like this before. Besides, the itch started on Tuesday morning, which meant that it was probably something I ate or had contact with on Monday evening. For the life of me, other than the nuts, I can't recall what else I'd eaten that night!

Somehow, I must have gotten some kind of mild allergic reaction on Monday, which might have gone away unnoticed. Unfortunately, I had nuts and an egg on Tuesday, thus aggravating the condition.

Anyway, I had to take a jab at the doctor's. He gave me some pills too and a bottle of calamine lotion, which really soothed the itchiness. It took about an hour or so before the itch finally ceased completely. I was in bed by 9-tish.

I hope I won't feel like a million bites after today.

Two Dinners At HV

2008-09-07T12:07:00.008+08:00

I had two nights of dinner at Holland Village.

On Thursday, I met C and HL for pizzas at one of the restaurants around Chip Bee Gardens. We were the only table indoors. We ordered salad and 2 pizzas. I think I ate about 4 slices and felt like bursting even though the pizzas were thin-crust. The salad was nice.

Then last night, I was at Marmalade Pantry with Joce and Mel. I'd met up with Joce a few weeks ago, but I hadn't seen Mel since Jann's wedding in May! That's what working life in Singapore does to us. She'll be going Paris for 2 weeks soon, so it was really great meeting up and catching up with what's been going on in our respective lives. Ha, not like I've got very much going on anyway. Still, we had a good time talking and stuffing our faces with the food.

Linguine with crab meat and spicy tomato-based sauce: It was sedap! I didn't eat very much of it though because I am trying to reduce my intake on carbohydrates.

Rib-eye steak that came in sandwich form: This wasn't too bad, but I didn't expect organic chips on the side. I was hoping for some sinful, chunky fries! Haha, I must have been so famished that I missed reading it on the menu.

We had a plate of salad too, but we were too hungry and attacked the dish without taking a picture of it. But you can be sure we wiped the plate CLEAN! Dessert was some mango and lemongrass crumble with a scoop of ice-cream on the side. Again, in my eagerness to devour the dessert, I'd forgotten to snap a shot of it with my camera.

I enjoy such dinner outings with my friends. Right, must start bugging Gina soon to organise the next one!

What Is Your Working Style?

2008-09-05T11:15:00.004+08:00

This one seems very true of me.

Your Working Style
You have a great deal of warmth, but may not show it until you know a person well. You keep your warm side inside, like a fur-lined coat. When you are care, you care deeply, but are more likely to show your feeling by deeds rather than words. You are very faithful to duties and obligations related to things or people you care about.

You take a very personal approach to life, judging everything by your inner ideals and personal values. You stick to your values with passionate conviction, but can be influenced by someone you care deeply about. Although your inner loyalties and ideals govern your life, you find these hard to talk about. Your deepest feelings are seldom expressed; your inner tenderness is masked by quiet reserve.

In everyday activities you are tolerant, open-minded, flexible, and adaptable. If one of your inner loyalties is threatened, though, you will not give an inch. You usually enjoy the present moment, and do not like to spoil it by rushing to get things done. You have little wish to impress or dominate. The people you prize the most are those who take the time to understand your values and the goals you are working toward.

You are interested mainly in the realities brought to you by your senses, both inner and outer. You are apt to enjoy fields where taste, discrimination, and a sense of beauty and proportion are important. You have a special love of nature and a sympathy with animals. You often excel in craftsmanship and the work of your hands is usually more eloquent than words.

You are twice as good when working at a job that you believe in, since your feeling adds energy to your efforts. You see the needs of the moment and try to meet them. You want your work to contribute to something that matters to you - human understanding, happiness, or health. You want to have a purpose beyond your paycheck, no matter how big the check. You are perfectionist whenever you deeply care about something, and are particularly suited for work that requires both devotion and a large measure of adaptability.

The problem for you is that you may feel such a contrast between your inner ideals and your actual accomplishments that you may burden yourself with a sense of inadequacy. This can be true even when you are being as effective as others. You take for granted anything you do well and are the most modest of all the types, tending to underrate and understate yourself.

It is important for you to find practical ways to express your ideals; otherwise you will keep dreaming of the impossible and accomplish very little. If you find no actions to express your ideal, you can become too sensitive and vulnerable, with dwindling confidence in life and in yourself. Actually, you have much to give and need only to find the spot where you are needed.

If anyone's interested, here's the quiz site: http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test47.aspx

Another Slow K-Jazz

2008-09-02T01:19:00.000+08:00

I am absolutely loving this. (;

24 Hours A Day Ain't Enough

2008-08-31T14:02:00.004+08:00

24 hours a day really isn't enough. So how many hours would I need? Let me do some calculations.

Sleep - 8 hours will be perfect.
Breakfast - 1 hour so that I can digest my food properly.
Lunch - 2 hours so that I can digest my food properly AND have time for chats with friends or colleagues.
Dinner - 1 hour so that I can digest my food properly.
Work - 12 hours MAXIMUM: 10 hours in office, 2 hours at home.
Travelling time - 1 hour to and from work.
Personal time at home - 7 hours: 1 hour for prayer and bible-reading, 1 hour for gym, 1 hour for 2 baths, 2 hours to surf online for news, to email friends, to chat, 1 hour for music, 1 hour for my K-drama/TV/facial/manicure/pedicure (changes everyday).
Dating - 2 hours. Admittedly, I don't have to go dating EVERYDAY, but I can always find something to do for those 2 hours. For example, meet my girl friends, shop or go for a rejuvenating massage, just to name a few.

Okay, that adds up to 34 hours a day - 10 hours more than what we actually have. WOOTS!

But with 24 hours a day, the situation is as follows:

Sleep - 4-6 hours, so it's an average of 5 hours.
Breakfast - Time varies depending on whether I have any free periods before recess at work; ranges from zero to 30 minutes. Let's take the average: 15 minutes.
Lunch - Time also varies depending on whether I have to meet any pupils after school; on the average, I eat my lunch within 15 minutes.
(Note: On busy days, I only have a quick brunch which lasts 5-10 minutes.)
Dinner - When I'm home, it's 10 minutes; when I'm out, it's between 45 minutes and an hour. Since I eat at home more than I do outside, that would be about 15 minutes on the average.
Work - The bell goes off at 7.20 am every week day morning and I usually go home between 6pm and 6.30 pm. That's about a good 11 hours. Sometimes, I go out to do marking with my colleagues. So after dinner, we usually start work at around 7.30 pm or 8 pm, marking all the way to as late as 10 pm sometimes. So that's another 2 hours. Since I don't go out marking every day with them, let's take the average: 24 minutes (2 hours divided by 5 week days). More often than not, when I'm home, I continue working. If I'm tired, I could last for about an hour. Otherwise, it's another 3 hours. Again, let's take the average: 2 hours. So, altogether, I spend about 13.5 hours on work a day.
Travelling time - 1 hour to and from work.
Personal time at home - When I'm exhausted, this is zilch. Otherwise, I usually insist on having about 2 hours of personal time (pray/blog/reflect/surf/email/chat online... any four of the above easily take up 2 hours; I do my K-dramas over the weekends if I do watch any).
Bathe - This is between 45 minutes and an hour. Taking the average, it's about 50 minutes.

There you have it. How I spend my 24 hours on a week day. My weekends are pretty much unexciting - catching up on my sleep usually - though there are certain Sundays I work outside with my colleagues for a good 6 hours. I guess I can forget about getting hitched. HAHA.

So, yup, anyone wants to give me a lecture on WORK-LIFE HARMONY?

Honestly, the government can't blame people for migrating. As much as I love Singapore, I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to survive this way for the next 30-40 years, assuming I live long enough.

Well, then again, we can't blame ANYONE really. That's just how it is in Singapore. We have to accept the fact that we're a small red dot on the world map and that people are our only resource. To live a life of security, we need money; and therefore we need to slog like a dog.

That's life, folks!

Where's The Blue Sky?

2008-08-24T17:13:00.010+08:00

The weather is cold and wet lately. Like now, it's raining cats and dogs. How dreary.

I hate the rain. I only like it when I have nothing to do and can afford to sleep in. Right now, I have too many things to do. In fact, I've been marking the entire afternoon, stopping once to chat for a few minutes with Joce via MSN.

I'm so tempted to take a nap right now.

I also have this inexplicable craving for buttered popcorns. BLARGH!

Honestly, I think I'm just feeling crappy because of the rain.

Here's a Korean song Just One More Night by M. It makes me feel a little better about the rain. By the way it's a slow jazz - one of my favourites. :)

Crazy Monday

2008-08-18T22:04:00.002+08:00

Today's been absolutely crazy.

Marking, national anthem, 5A, marking again, 1D, brunch (managed to squeeze in some time for this somehow - phew!), marking once more, a meeting with Mable and Transinex, prepared the necessary items for Choir practice and then sped out of school for the O Level EL Oral Examination. Thankfully, Mrs D offered to drive me to the examination centre because it was raining. Otherwise, I would have been dreadfully late - and drenched!

The theme for today's examination wasn't very interesting. I was struggling to keep myself awake. A few candidates we had today were speaking in voices that really droned on and on. What made it worse was my lack of sleep the previous night because I was ploughing through a stack of examination scripts.

At least those are done. I have another 3 stacks more to go.

>_<

NDP 2008

2008-08-10T01:37:00.009+08:00

NDP 2008. It's finally over.

For the first time in God-knows-how-many years, it rained during NDP. Thankfully, spirits were not dampened.

I watched everyone around me digging for ponchos from their fun packs and could have kicked myself. I hadn't bothered to queue up for the fun pack because I already have two sitting at home from previous rehearsals.

And, of all the days, it had to rain then. -_-"

What else could I do but whip out my newly-bought Marks & Spencers brolly, which is completely black. I had to be thick-skinned enough to hold it up, thus sticking out like a sore thumb in the sea of red. If you had seen a black umbrella on TV or the big screen, that was probably me. HAH. Hopefully, the viewers were distracted by other things on the screen. ;p

It was difficult trying to snap pictures and holding the brolly up at the same time. There were times when the drizzle got lighter, so I retracted the brolly and happily clicked away. When the drizzle got heavier, up went my brolly again. This went on for a good hour until it finally stopped drizzling just before the arrival of President SR Nathan. I think the people sitting around me must have felt terribly irritated to have the umbrella poking at their faces, blocking their view. For that, I'm truly sorry. -_-

Overall, I think the pictures I took cannot give justice to the wonderful show I saw. Quite a number of my photographs are blurry due to the smoke and dust particles from all the blasting of canons, fire sparks and fireworks. The wind just wasn't strong enough to blow them away. The drizzle during the first hour made it worse. I was pretty disappointed with the results honestly. I was so ready to capture the entire performance that I'd actually waited until Friday night to charge BOTH my camera batteries. Out of the 400-odd pictures I took, I think only 30% or even less are good. ;(

Anyway, as usual, I'll just post the better ones (that is, the less awful ones) in this entry. This time round, I managed to capture more of our Quest Choir participants on the big screen! Ha! =D

Before the show commenced, grey clouds were already looming over our heads.

The Combined Schools' Choir geting ready

Michelle Chong making her entrance

Jean Danker waving to the crowd

The picture is blur, I know, but can you make out the hordes of people?

Here's Adrian Pang singing as he made his entrance

A clearer picture of the view I had of the crowd at Fullerton

I managed to snap this which appeared on the big screen.

Huilin and Joyce Lim were on it!

The cha cha dancers

The Choir doing the cha cha, too, with their maracas

On the big screen: Meimei and Jiawei in the 1st row;

Marvin was blocked by Mr Lennie... OOPS!

The line-dancers performing together with the Choir

The Choir and the cheerleaders

Nathan Hartono singing Where I Belong

Sparks from the jets

More sparks!

Why was everyone waving their flags?

Here's why: the Red Lions!

Giant air balloons tumbling over us

Performing precision drills and making music in the heavy drizzle

Sparks from the bikes

The star formation with sparks

The NDP 08 formation

The NDP 08 formation with the colours party and guards-of-honour

On the big screen while performing for Veedu: Shanice & Charlene in the 5th row, Deborah, Eunice, Melisa (slightly blocked) & Julia in the 4th, Rachel & Kaili in the 3rd!

Arrival of MM Lee & SM Goh

Don't they look good? =D

On the big screen: Meimei, Jiawei & Marvin (blocked again... oops!) in 1st row;

Huiying in 2nd row behind Meimei

On screen again: Melisa & Julia (partially blocked by her green prop) in the centre;

Rachel & Kaili in front of Julia

Deborah, Eunice & Melisa once again! (;

Final pose for Tiada Lain Bagiku Melainkan Di Sini

PM Lee looking serious

Jacintha singing We Are Singapore

On screen yet again: Peiying, Mandi & Shanice! =D

The sky started clearing up a little! Woots! About time!

Arrival of President SR Nathan

Arrival of state flag

MAJULAH SINGAPURA!

The Black Knights saluting the nation

Helicopter view - literally - captured on the big screen

I did not take pictures of the march pass. It was rather difficult from where I was sitting to get good shots. :(

The Black Knights zooming over us again

The sky finally cleared up!

More water from the fountains, however. Heh.

A shot of the Singapore Flyer

Sparks again!

Colurful displays of lights

This was the part where I started snapping my camera furiously - non-stop. HAHA.

As I left the floating platform, I took this shot.
The merlion looked a little creepy in my humble opinion. ;p

Back in school at the foyer, the kids getting ready to thank Terrance who was initially on the phone, oblivious of their intention! Haha!

Well, it was a very trying three months, but I think I enjoyed myself for the most parts of it. Even though my marking, lesson preparation and delivery, health and meet-ups with friends suffered big-time, things somehow always worked out miraculously in the end. Praise and thanks be to the Lord for always being there to look out for me! =)

As much as I'd complained about several of my precious Saturdays being burnt up in smoke, I will miss being part of the NDP - the crazy schedule, the ever-changing roster for teachers, the last minute requests from CCAB, Terrance and even pupils, the NDP Media Brief 2, watching the pupils dance and sing over and over again, watching the full rehearsals practically every Saturday, crapping with fellow Choir teachers from other schools. The list goes on. I will miss it all, as crazy as it sounds. (Read my heartfelt thanks at Quest Choir Blog.)

Here's the group photo we took with Terrance. There's a second photograph floating somewhere out there. I shall ask around for it. x)

Here's wishing Singapore a very happy 43rd birthday!
May the Lord continue to pour His blessings upon our homeland.

Gospel Aerobics Is Just So COOL!

2008-07-31T22:08:00.002+08:00

I love this idea! Is it done in Singapore? I'll definitely go for it!!! =)

Gospel aerobics gives 'raise' unto the Lord

Fires were burning in the abdominal muscles of a dozen women as they slowly raised and lowered their legs and praised the Lord in a church hall near Washington, while an uplifting gospel recording sang of how awesome God is.

"We almost done, y'all praise God," gospel aerobics instructor Melanie Kelly shouted over the music to the group of African-American women as they struggled to control the trembling legs they were lowering to the floor for the umpteenth time.

Gospel aerobics blends spirituality and sport, adulation and adductors, praise and press-ups. It takes an arduous workout out of the gym and lifts it to a higher plane.

"Gospel aerobics is where we come together and exercise to present our bodies as temples to God," said Dawn Harvey, pastor at the church and founder of Embrace your Greatness, which aims to empower women.

"Our bodies house the Holy Spirit, so we want to take very good care of our temples so we can live long, prosperous and healthy lives," she said, citing from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Kelly has been leading the weekly gospel aerobics class in the carpeted meeting room with deep maroon walls at the Dawn Harvey Ministries church just outside Washington since April, when she said she acted on a vision she had been sent from on high.

"One day, I was in my basement and was dancing and exercising at the same time, and God gave me a vision to do gospel aerobics," said Kelly, who is a systems analyst in her day job, and a praise dancer -- someone who ministers the word of God through dance and movement -- at the weekend.

After a 10-minute warm-up, Kelly and her charges moved on to arm exercises as a CD-player in the corner belted out the lyrics: "Ever since the day you claimed me, I've never been the same."

"Grab yourself back from the devil," Kelly exhorted the women as they snatched at the air with outstretched hands and moved from side to side.

"Lift him up, higher, higher," the lithe instructor bellowed, as the music shifted to "My God is an awesome God" and the class began doing press-ups.

Flagging bi- and triceps were buoyed by words of encouragement from others and by the music.

"When we push ourselves, having music that actually fulfills the spirit and doesn't just move the body, helps," said Harvey, who has dropped a dress size since she started taking the hour-long class.

"No harm will come to these vessels... no pain... we ask you to remove it in the name of Jesus," Kelly said, drawing approving 'Amens' from the sweaty class.

But Kelly must have been referring to spiritual pain, because the physical hurt was real and present.

"The burning is there. You feel it and it hurts... but we push through it," said Mary Grice, a post office worker.

"It's still aerobics, but doing it unto the Lord makes it easier and gives us that extra push," said Kindra Owens.

Patrina said she has lost 18 pounds (8.5 kilos) since she joined the gospel aerobics class in May.

"I had a gym membership before, but I didn't go," she told AFP.

"When you go to the gym they might be playing Britney Spears or something and I don't want to listen to Britney Spears," she said, wiping beads of sweat from her brow.

But she didn't forsake the gym for the church hall only because of the music.

"You get so much support here. People are expecting to see your shining face here every week. You know these people are praying for you and they're in your corner," she said.

And unlike the local gym, which one of the women described as a "meat market" where scantily clad men ogle just as scantily clad women, gospel aerobics classes are held in an environment where the only one watching is the instructor -- and, of course, God.

"He is watching us now. He is always with us," Harvey said as the music segued into another uplifting spiritual and the women gritted their teeth and worked through another grueling set to divinely shape their glutes, getting assistance from above.

WHEE! PRAISE THE LORD!
=D

Yearning For The Blues And Whites

2008-07-31T15:34:00.004+08:00

What wretched misery my life has been this past week. I called in sick today due to a nasty migraine. I feel better now but there's still a little tension in my head.

I yearn for the blue waters, the blue sky and white clouds. The weather looks glorious at the moment. Clear sky and a good, strong breeze.

Here's a sight for sore eyes and hammered brains.

It's the view of the sky from the window in my room. I guess I can only settle for second best at the moment.

My Latest Desire

2008-07-22T18:05:00.008+08:00

I'm waiting for the K-serial, Gourmet or 식객 (Shikgaek) or 食客, to arrive in DVDs so that I can buy them! Okay, I guess I'm wayyyyy over-excited about this drama. You see, I've been reading how good it is at Dramabeans. Although I managed to watch only the first 3 episodes, I'm helplessly hooked! It's excruciating having to wait for the following episodes.

The drama is currently on air in South Korea, probably in its 11th or 12th episode by now. And I'm still waiting for episode 4!!! GAHHHH!!! I wish they'd hurry up with the subbing.

So, what's so fantastic about this serial?

First of all, there's Kim Rae Won. HAHA. I think he's one of the most charismatic Korean actors around and he is definitely talented in acting. And with such amiable personality as Sungchan's (KRW's role in the serial), it's even harder to resist watching him! (;

Secondly, it's food galore! I used to think Korean cuisine was all ramen, seaweed and kimchi, spicy and sour; nothing more. But the serial actually opened my eyes to a wider and more exciting array of Korean dishes. It's one thing to have my eyes feasting on such delightfully decorated food that tantalizes my senses, but quite another to learn about how certain ingredients and/or spices can enhance, conceal or sometimes clash with the main ingredient of the dish. I found it really educational - even though I'm no chef seeking to improve my culinary skills.

I find Korean dramas have a knack of bringing out the country's culture and tradition and making it so appealing to the foreigners. Recently, even the French (who are known to be proud of their own culture) are apparently taking to the Korean culture.

The third reason for being addicted to this serial: the exciting events taking place. I also think it is one of the very well-paced Korean serials ever produced. There was not a moment I felt bored watching it. It happens sometimes in some serials with episodes which are very slow-moving. Granted I've only seen 3 episodes of Gourmet, but so far it's met my expectations even after I've read its good reviews at Dramabeans.

Hopefully, it stays that way as the story unfolds. (=

NE Show 2, 2008

2008-07-13T14:15:00.063+08:00

Heheheheheh. I know, I know. I've been posting pictures of the NDP show for the past few weeks. You must be sick of it by now. Unfortunately, I'm not! ;p Not yet, anyway.

NE Show 2 was a lot more organized than the first. I am glad I had the second opportunity to watch the big performance! =D

My brother was there with his RVPS pupils too, sitting right in front of the VIP function room (the little building behind the audience), while my mother sat in the first row right behind Teo Chee Hean, our Minister for Defence, who was the reviewing minister for NE Show 2. I sat somewhere in between them with colleagues from Montfort. We had better seats than last week and we got in a lot faster without having to take any detour from Choir's holding site at the Flyer. The fun packs were already placed on the chairs for everyone, so a lot of queueing-up time was saved.

Everything looked more in place. The audience was fantastic - co-operative, appreciative and very, very encouraging - especially all the students from the lime green and leaf green sectors. Their cheers really rocked the floating platform. I thought our choir kids did better than last week, though we've yet to receive feedback for last night's performance. (The feedback supplied for NE Show 1 wasn't very positive.) As usual, the fireworks took my breath away, but I was still sane enough to snap plenty of shots.

Well, I'll post the pictures up and you decide if they are downright awful, mediocre or very nice. Haha, I'm not expecting anything more commendable than 'very nice'. ;D Anyway, as usual, I'll only post the better ones. ;p

Rehearsal at the Singapore Flyer

My attempt to be artsy

'Twas a glorious day!

Love the weather!

Cha cha away: We Will Get There

Line-dancing: Together

Cheer-leading: One People, One Nation, One Singapore + Singapore Cheer

Twirling away the flowers to form a sparkly giant birthday card for Singapore

Really love the colours!

Just keep twirling... just keep twirling...

Dancing to the jazzy Where I Belong with the huge, inflated red hand

The motorised paragliders - four of them this time!

Can you spot the 3 very cool activities going on here?
Paragliding, wakeboarding and jet-skiing!!!

The sky in such brilliant hue: I couldn't resist another shot of the paragliders

More individual shots of our Red Lions

Sparks from the motorbikes...

... and even rifles!

Couldn't resist this shot because of the brilliant blue sky and pretty white clouds

More of the sky!

In the limelight: Colours party and guards-of-honour

I'm not sure if it's an eagle or even the same one, but it's certainly huge. I've been seeing it gliding around for several weeks now. I don't know if eagles are territorial, but this one (if it's an eagle) seems to be overseeing this part of the sky. I've always liked eagles. I think they're like the big cats - very majestic with an aura of quiet authority.

Final pose for Veedu

Masks AND fans used for 幸福的图形 this time

Right after the arrival of the Ministry for Defence, there was MAJULAH SINGAPURA!

Arrival of the state flag

The Singapore flag flying high and proud

Love this shot

It never ceases to amaze me how thrilled I get every time I see them in the sky in this formation! Haha!

On the screen: our Minister for Defence, Teo Chee Hean, waving and smiling

Fire away!

As a mark of respect: audience standing for...

... the march-pass of the colours party

Zooming over us again: the Black Knights

Something new: dancing fountains

Last but definitely not the least, here is the climax of the entire parade: the fireworks!

After the performance, the participants stayed behind to rehearse for the finale again. We left the floating platform for Choir's holding area. As usual, we were blocked by MINDEF personnels who only allowed us through when we told them we were teachers-in-charge of the Combined Schools' Choir.

It's such a hassle to enter and leave the floating platform without the pass. Apparently, they've stopped producing it. I am quite upset about the whole thing honestly. Are we teachers so insignificant that we've been overlooked? Or that we absolutely have no need to be at the floating platform? Blugh. And this is after being with the kids during ALL rehearsals since May. 没有功劳也有苦劳。

Anyway, we only managed to board the bus at around 10 pm, I think. By the time I dismissed the pupils from school and locked up the school gates, it was around 10.50 pm. Thankfully, I managed to flag a cab which was willing to drive in the direction of my home. I only reached home a little after 11 pm, and met my brother (who also came home in a cab) at the basement carpark.

I've rostered myself off-duty from NDP rehearsals next weekend. I need a break. And honestly, at the rate my work is piling up, I suspect I will probably be working anyway. Gosh, I must go out or something. I miss the girls. Mel is at Hillsongs conference in Sydney the past week. I think she should be back this coming week. I should make arrangements for a meet-up soon with her and Joce. Hopefully, they'll be free.

NE Show 1, 2008

2008-07-06T01:04:00.092+08:00

Because I've been to all the rehearsals (so far), I kinda know the entire parade programme by heart. There were a few changes though, example the entrance of the hosts for the pre-parade segment. The climax of the entire show was of course the fireworks! Apparently, it was only 25% of what will be shown on the actual day.

Here are the pictures again. I'm not sure if I'll get to enter the floating platform again after yesterday's show because the choir teachers-in-charge have not been issued with any pass! (How infuriating!) So I'm going to post quite a lot of what I'd taken with my camera yesterday. Most performers were in their costumes. Of course, the cabinet ministers were simulated, along with the most important people at the top. Hehe. The audience was most amused, especially the primary school pupils who were sitting in the sky blue sector and behind us. Anyways, enjoy!

As usual, the Combined Schools' Choir was the first to appear on stage. (=

Adrian Pang, making his grand entrance as he sang Reach Out For the Skies

His sidekicks: Michelle Chong, Huda Ali, Ebi Shankara and Jean Danker. Don't they remind you of...

POWER RANGERS!!!!!

Some of the audience reaching to hit one of the two giant air balls that came rolling down from behind us in our section

The Choir performing their first song We Will Get There together with dancers (some on wheels) doing the cha cha

The Combined Schools' Choir doing the cha cha with their maracas as they sang; and caught on screen: two girls in the 5th row look like Peiying and Mandi. I'm not sure. Is it them?

The Choir performing the second song Together with the colourfully-costumed line dancers

The Choir singing and doing a very cool dance (their favourite!) to their third number One People, One Nation, One Singapore + the Singapore Cheer with the cheerleaders

A very young but talented Nathan Hartono delivering his jazzy rendition of Where I Belong

Three paragliders about to fly over the floating platform with the national flag

My closest shot of two of them

The audience waving their flags at them when they glided over us again

Cloudy sky on the right; no sun!

Clearer sky on the left

The Red Lions in action once again =)

Military band, military police and traffic police

The marching contingents taking their positions on the stage

Our macho men-in-green

The NDP 08 formation

Colours party and guards-of-honour marching in

Look at the hordes of crowd at the Merlion right in front of Fullerton Hotel

The Choir performing for the fourth song, Veedu, which means 'Home' in Tamil

No more fuchsia fans!

Not as bright, but looking good nonetheless (;

The Choir performing to 幸福的图形, the Mandarin version of My Island Home

The Combined Schools' Choir singing and dancing to
Tiada Lain Bagiku Melainkan Di Sini, the Malay version of There's No Place I'd Rather Be

Some of the pupils from Quest Choir were caught in action on screen x)

The Choir dancing to the a cappella verion of We Are Singapore, sung by Jacintha and the SAF MDC singers

Here comes the Singapore flag (=

One of the hot favourites at the NDP

The excited audience waving their flags again

Ready... Aim... FIRE!

The march pass

The Black Knights back for more action

Two Black Knights flying towards and then past each other, displaying the pilots' skill of precision in flying

Four Black Knights forming a heart in the sky

A Black Knight doing some kind of ribbon flip

The Black Knights presenting their final formation

ACT 1: SEARCH! PIONEERS OF A NEW AGE

Act 1, Scene 1: Voyagers of the Seven Seas

Clownish-looking balloons with boats at the bay

Act 1, Scene 2: Navigators of Discovery

Act 1, Scene 3: Seekers of Success

ACT 2: SENSE! ARTISTS OF A NEW LANDSCAPE

Act 2, Scene 1: Statues of Inspiration

Act 2, Scene 2: Party of Creativity

Love the colourful lights!

Act 2, Scene 3: Architects of New Age

ACT 3: SPRING! CREATORS OF A NEW WORLD

Act 3, Scene 1: Lions of the Seas

Act 3, Scene 2: Ushers of Possibility

FINALE: SHINE! SINGAPORE SPIRIT

A spectacular display of fireworks!

Stand-in for Joi Chua and Hady Mirza for NDP 08 theme song Shine for Singapore; can't wait to get my hands on it... HEH...

Then, there were more fireworks! Woo!

Apparently, this is only 25% of what will be shown on the actual day of performance!

Audience leaving the floating platform; rehearsal for the finale continued for another hour O;

While waiting, I took this picture of the primary school pupils leaving; love the colours (;

By the time we boarded the bus, it was around 10 pm, about 30 minutes later than previous practices. The kids were quieter on the bus ride back to school this time. I guess most of them were spacing out.

Next Saturday, we have to go through the whole process again for NE Show 2. This time, we are to arrive the holding area by 1 pm; which means reporting time is an hour earlier than usual. I'm beginning to feel the strain of attending rehearsals every week; I can feel the flu lying dormant within me, waiting for the moment for an all-out attack. Thankfully, though, it has been rather enjoyable watching the show (albeit for the umpteenth time). ;p

The Second Rehearsal

2008-06-29T19:29:00.019+08:00

The second NDP combined rehearsal ended a little earlier than the first. We were all glad. Haha. I was talking quite a bit with the choir teachers-in-charge from Woodgrove and Montfort this time. Very chatty and funny people!

Our local celebrity comperes arrived the floating platform in style and rehearsed for the pre-parade segment. Even though they were rattling off from their scripts, they were hilarious. It was albeit a little strange to see them 'trying' (they weren't trying of course - it was just a rehearsal) to hype up the audience who were mainly uniform personnels, student participants (who were the motivators), and more civil servants (example, teachers). Haha.

I tried taking pictures with my camera at the start of the rehearsal, but it died on me. ;( Clearly, I'd forgotten to recharge the batteries over the week. I had to resort to using my PDA-phone, which had a very low battery level. Still, it survived the entire evening and I thought I had managed to capture some fantastic moments. The colours are amazing. Unfortunately, the clarity is disappointing. Oh well, better than nothing!

The Red Lions in action - awesome stuff! Apparently, the last parachuteer has done about a million jumps! It was really amazing to see them sky-diving at such a high altitude. The first jumper to touch ground had to drop for the furthest distance before he could open his parachute. I think I was gaping when I saw how fast the drop was. HAHA.

The military band doing their stuff, which was really nice. I enjoyed the music. Half the time I was wondering if they were playing 'live', although the answer was pretty clear. ;p

The very smart-looking marching contingents. Our CCA uniform groups in schools should aspire to march like that and look this good! (;

The combined schools' choir looked really beautiful performing with the fuchsia fans. I can't wait to see them in their full costume!

This is my best shot of one of the major highlights of the parade. Not too bad for a low-batt PDA-phone, eh? The planes were really FAST, mind you. ;O

Singapore's skyline in the early evening. You can see the beautifully-lit Fullerton on the right of the picture. The merlion is hardly visible though. But it's there, in front of Fullerton.

Love the lights and colours. More to come!

Unidentified Flying Object visiting Singapore? ;O

Nope! Obviously not! It's the fireworks!

This is only 5% of the climactic display we'll get to see on the actual day!!!

Even though the choir teachers-in-charge on duty on the big day won't be at the floating platform, we should be near enough to get to watch the fireworks lighting up the sky. It's been quite a while since I saw live fireworks. Great anticipation!

At Long Last...

2008-06-26T20:40:00.020+08:00

... I can blog! It's been an extremely busy two weeks - especially now that Term 3 has begun. I forced myself to drop all my work so that I could leave school by 2.15pm latest for a visit at the doctor, do some grocery-shopping and go for an early session at the gym. I told myself, "No more work for today. You didn't even have a proper break during the June holidays. And you'll be down for NDP rehearsals practically every Saturday until the big day, which means half your weekends are good as gone. SO FORGET ABOUT WORK FOR TODAY AND REST!"

And I did just that.

Sorry to the 5A pupils whom I was supposed to meet for EPC, but I think my health is more important than anything. Nothing can compensate once our health breaks down.

休息，是为了走更长远的路。

The June holiday saw me having my only 2 days of rest on Monday and Tuesday at home in the final week. Even then, I was completing three reports on Monday. In truth, I only had one miserable day of rest for the entire June break. Most tragic, wouldn't you say?

Then, there was department meeting on Wednesday morning and discipline workshop on Thursday morning. I spent my afternoons thereafter clearing my table. Finally, we had a staff meeting and retreat for the entire Friday. Admittedly, the retreat was pretty fun. We sat on the Singapore Flyer and many of us were trigger-happy, clicking our cameras away at the fantastic scenery. Anyone would have thought that we were foreigners, eager to capture the helicopter view of Singapore's skyline.

Here are a few shots that I especially like - minus the unsightly reflections.

On Saturday, Choir had to go for the first NDP combined rehearsal. The pupils reported at about noon in school and we didn't return until past 10 pm! It was really tiring, but I enjoyed watching the rehearsal even though it wasn't the real show and it took everyone forever to move in place for the finale.

Here are some pictures to whet your appetite for the actual NDP. Heh.

I hope it's another beautiful weather for the second rehearsal this Saturday. (=

The Delicious iPhone

2008-06-16T16:17:00.013+08:00

Here's another gadget I hanker after.

The iPhone 3G.

I know. I just bought my Nokia E61i. It works fine at the moment. Hopefully, it'll last me for at least the next year and a half. I'm looking at the iPhone as my next handphone. Who knows how it'll evolve in the next year and a half, but no harm keeping my eye on it now, right? (x