Mon 29 Jun

I managed to settle some work that came with the start of the term, and left relatively early for driving lessons at 3.30 pm. Today was my first time at the circuit, and I found it quite fun. Of course, it wasn't as stressful for me since I was learning auto, as my wife was quick to point out the agonizing control of gear and clutch in the S-curve and Z-curve and whatever else.

My wife and I were somewhat unhealthy today, and we ordered a late night supper from Mcdelivery. The oddest thing was that the delivery boy got the order wrong. I didn't realize it because he got the drink (iced milo) right, and that was the one in the transparent bag. The rest of the order, which was the food, was wrong. I had ordered a Fillet O-Fish upsized, added with an apple pie and cinnamon melts, and what was in the paper bag was a McChicken meal and a McSpicy meal, with two apple pies. Technically I got more than I paid for, but seriously, neither my wife nor me wanted either burger, so it was a filling but agonizing supper.

Tue 30 Jun

I was in school doing some work and preparations for next week. For lunch, a bunch of us headed down to Old Airport Rd for lunch. I had the staple Whitley Rd Prawn Noodles, and a durian goreng. I wanted dessert originally, but my favourite Blanco Court one was closed for the day. My wife and I left school in the mid-afternoon and went to spend some time with Jadon before going home to do a bucketload of chores.

Wed 1 Jul

This was one heck of a long day. I had visual screening duty in the morning, so I was in school at 6 am. I did the duty till about 7.45 am before I went back to the staff room to do some work. For lunch, we headed out to 216 market. I went with one group of colleagues, and ate a bowl of you mian and a bowl of laksa. Another group of colleagues came later, but because one of them had to rush back, I swapped places with her, and went back later with the other group.

By right I was supposed to invigilate my own Year 2 chemistry paper, but I was assigned to be on one of the panels for the interviews of next year's potential TA students. That took up my time from 2.30 (one hour for pre-discussions) till 7.30 pm! Some of my colleagues wanted dinner, so we went down to Siglap to grab some nice chicken rice with zi char dishes. The colleague who drove, my Magic the Gathering kaki, gave me a ride down to Bukit Merah, so I was able to join my pastor for cell meeting when worship was almost over, and the whole thing took till 10.30. My pastor graciously drove me back to Bedok, so I ended my day at 11 pm. I was barely awake by then, especially considering the sleep debt owed.

Thu 2 Jul

I have been supporting the Good News Cafe which newly opened on college campus by buying the ice-blended drinks, which at $2.20 were pretty decent. Lunch was a treat by some colleagues who were promoted earlier this year, and they brought in Rite Pizza, which served decent pizza (I found the ingredients too little on the pizza though), and interesting sides like samosas, prawn rolls, spring rolls and chicken wings. They also bought shepherd's pie from one shop from Sempang (is that how you spell it?) Bedok, which was delicious!

In the evening, I headed down to Bedok Camp for remedial training, and again we ran a total of 2.8 km in addition of many other exercises. I wonder if I'm losing weight through all this. Hmm.

Fri 3 Jul

It was good that I finished marking yesterday, so I spent the time sorting out some administration, and for lunch, my colleague felt like going somewhere different, so I brought them down to Downtown East to eat at Mr Chicken Rice. After that, we bought the creamy ice-tea from the basement Chipshop which was still fabulously rich, before heading back to college for invigilation of the Year 1 chemistry paper. The TA 1 chemistry papers ran concurrently, so I wanted to start marking after I was done with invigilation, but I decided to bring the scripts back to mark. In case I didn't have time to mark over the weekend, I marked the scripts till about 1 am in the morning.

Sat 4 Jul

My wife and I went over to my in-laws' place quite early to spend time with Jadon. For dinner, we went to the newly renovated Kopitiam next to Bedok library to eat at Astons Express. My wife had the grilled fish with herbs and I had a prime ribeye xtra cut. The food was good, but the drinks at the coffee shop suck. Big time. I ordered barley, which looked like murky water. It was awfully translucent to the point of almost being clear, and it tasted extremely diluted. To give the drinks stall a second chance, I ordered iced milo, and it was about two-thirds ice, and one-third not even thick milo. If I ever eat there again, I will order a canned drink and nothing else.

Sun 5 Jul

My wife was still sick, so I made my own way down to Simei. I ate my favourite fishball noodles at the NTUC foodcourt for breakfast and took the shuttle bus to church for service. After service, I rushed off with my cell, and we headed down to Bedok interchange for lunch. One of my boys, Junhui, was having a magic performance, and he asked for us to go and support him, so we did. He told me the show was at 1.30 pm, so since I thought we'd be late, I took a cab there.

When we got to the address, I was confused, because we could only find some big Malay-styled event setup at the void deck. I verified with Junhui's friend, and we were indeed at the right place. So we hung around, not knowing where we were. Someone came to us and asked us to take a seat and help ourselves to the food, but we already ate. In the end, the show started at 2.50! Inbetween it felt like racial harmony day, and we listened to the Quran scriptural reading, the traditional Malay singing (don't know how to describe it otherwise...), and a Silat performance. We felt extremely out of place. The feeling was only mitigated by the fact that there were many other Chinese people around, and it looked like they were there for the free food. Only later I found out that the event was actually a celebration of the birthday of the prophet. Anyway, after catching Junhui's performance, which had some minor glitches but otherwise went well and was well-received, I took a cab down to Bedok Camp for another round of Remedial Training.

Once in a while, I get this nagging inspiration to write a certain thing. So this one is for all my students/friends who have just or yet to acquire a credit card.

Make Credit Cards Work For You!
A layman’s guide to credit cards by Low Kian Seh.

Despite reports of soaring bank debts and bankruptcy due to credit card debts, in all seriousness I have to say that credit cards are wonderful and only benefit the consumer – if you know how to make them work for you.

1. BENEFITS OF CREDIT CARDS

So why apply for credit cards? First thing you should know is that the banks want you more than you want them. If you get a credit card from them and you spend, they earn, and the best thing is that they don’t actually earn from you, unless you are unwise. I’ll talk about that later. Then what is in it for you?

Sign-Up Perks / Recommendation Perks

This is the most immediate and visible benefit. As I stated earlier, the banks want you as clients. Hence, many banks dangle a carrot before you in the form of cash, vouchers, free gifts such as watches, bags and accessories. Some companies offer rewards for recommending others, so you can always rope in people to get more good deals. However, this should not be a main consideration for the usage of the credit card, as many people sign up, get the freebies, and when the annual fee is next charged, they terminate the card (if they don’t use it). Of course, take note that the banks do keep track of your records, so they may have terms and conditions if you were to sign up for a new card with them at a later time.

Discounts and Promotions

This is the most prominent benefit that a credit card brings. Many retail merchants and F & B (food & beverage) establishments have discounts with certain credit cards or banks, and have promotions from time to time. There are two kinds of discounts and promotions: seasonal and permanent.

Seasonal discounts happen for a short time, which can range from days to weeks to a couple of months, especially the Great Singapore Sale (GSS). Permanent discounts and promotions are usually for merchants which have long-term cooperation with the banks, such as petrol companies, or if the credit card is launched in collaboration with some particular company. Some examples are Tangs, Robinsons, Ikea, Singtel, SMRT, and etc.

Discounts can range from 5% upwards, and can be quite attractive. Promotions can come in the form of lucky draws, vouchers awarded for a certain amount of spending, redeeming movie tickets, and etc. As a general rule of thumb, if you are in doubt, just ask the cashier or waiter if there are any credit card promotions, and you can check if you have the right card for the purchase or payment.

Points and Rebates

This is a big bonus for credit card holders. Aside from discounts and promotions, most credit cards either have a point-system or rebate-system to manage rewards for your spending. The more you spend, the more points or rebates you earn. Now this is the part where mathematics come into picture. Now most credit cards use the point-system. They can name it any other name, but as long as you earn points with your spending, and you can use the points to redeem gifts or vouchers, that is essentially a point-system.

In general, the points are earned at a rate of 1 point per $5 of spending. There are some variations on this, but that seems to be the ‘market rate’. Sometimes, there are promotions during certain periods of time that you can earn more points with your spending, but that depends on the banks. Anyway, the usually redemption rate seems to be pegged at $10 voucher per 500 to 750 points across banks. So after crunching the calculators, essentially, you get $10 back for every $2500 to $3750 of spending. That works out to be a return of 0.27% to 0.40% of what you spend.

Now the other system is a rebate-system, and the credit cards that offer this are fewer in number. Usually the rebates are tiered and tied to the kind of expenditure. So you may have a different percentage rebate for petrol as compared to dining for instance. Generally, the rebate is 1% onwards for participating merchants, and can reach as high as 5%, and at the lowest, it is about 0.5% for all other expenditure. If you compare that with my number crunch earlier, it is quite obvious that in general, the rebates are worth more than the points.

Use this as an evaluating criterion, and soon you can figure out what cards are more worth using when you pay for stuff in the long run. Of course, do take into account the earlier part about discounts and promotions, and you will become a wise spender.

Interest-free Installments

This is a lesser-known benefit, but it is deserving of mention. Typically, the installment plans stretch for 6, 12, 18, 24 or even 36 months. One thing to note is that the term ‘interest-free’ is misleading. If you calculate what you pay for the instalments, it is true that there is no additional charge of interest. However, if you work backwards, you will realize that the merchants would have worked the interest that would otherwise be charged into the retail prices.

However, do recognize this: even if you don’t take installments, you are also paying extra, so why not? The usual drawback is this though: when you pay for something by installments, usually you do not earn points or rebates with the purchase. Why do I consider this a benefit? Well, there are times when you may be cash-strapped and this becomes important. Of course, the price is probably higher than another shop that does not offer installments, but only you will know how much liquidity you need to have. I think the most common use of this will be taking of facial/slimming packages, electrical appliances and other costly purchases.

Special and Specific Benefits

This is a more recent thing as Platinum cards are being pushed across banks. Special benefits would be travel perks, which can range from airline, travel package or hotel stay discounts, and membership to certain establishments. Common ones include golf courses and fitness centres. Some cards offer unlimited access, while others have a restriction on the number of times you can access these places for free each month.

2. THEN HOW DO BANKS MAKE MONEY FROM CREDIT CARDS?

This should be the burning question, since it seems to cost you nothing but you get a bucket-load of benefits. This is an important question, because once you understand this part, you will learn how to make the credit cards work for you.

Bank Charge on Merchants

This is the part that most people are unaware of, and is the main source of income for the banks. Every single transaction that a merchant makes via credit card is charged a certain percentage of the purchase by the bank. The value of that percentage may vary, but it is, I think, in the vicinity of 5%. So the larger the purchase, the more the bank earns from it.

Now, similar to the interest-free installment section, the merchants would have incorporated this hidden cost into the retail price as long as the merchant accepts credit card usage. Hence, the prices are already adjusted higher to account for this extra cost. This is an important point: if I phrase it in another way, this means that if you pay by cash when credit cards can be used, you are paying extra and giving the shop more profit! Not to mention that you lose out on the points or rebates that you could have earned. Therefore, use your credit cards whenever possible!

The only exception is this: when the shop accepts credit card usage, but charges an extra percentage on the sale if a credit card is used. The best example of this system is in Sim Lim Square. Most of the merchants there can offer lower prices than other places because they do not adjust the pricing to incorporate this charge. Therefore, if you pay by cash, it is a lower cost than if you pay by credit. So unless you can get a 5% rebate with the purchase, it is safe to assume that it’s better to not pay by credit in this case.

Interest Rate and Late Charges

Interest rate is charged on the remaining amount whenever a credit bill is not fully paid. Usual interest rate for credit cards is 24% per annum, but that does not work out to be 2% per month apparently, and the interest charge is quite hefty if you have an unpaid balance in thousands.

Late charge is the penalty fee if you missed the deadline. With every month’s bill (usually on a fixed day for each bank), there is a date to make payment by. If you miss the payment, there will be a fee charged, and it can range from roughly $40 to $60, depending on the bank.

Annual Fee

This is an annual subscription charge for the credit card, and can range from a low of $50 thereabouts to above $200 depending on the prestige and benefits of the card. Some cards come with lifetime fee waiver provided you exceed a certain amount of annual expenditure, and some cards come with free annual fee waiver for the first few (1 to 5, depending on the credit card) years.

3. HOW DO WE MAKE THE CARDS WORK FOR US?

The benefits listed in the first section are there for the taking, and does not cost us anything at all. The second section lists the way the banks make money. Now the bank charges on the merchants have no effect on us except for the specific cases I’ve mentioned, so how do we circumvent the charges that do affect us?

Use your Credit Card as Often as Possible

Whenever you are going to pay for something, check if the merchant accepts credit card payments with no extra charges. If a credit card can be used, check if there are specific credit cards with discounts or promotions and use those. If not then use the one that benefits you the most, be it in terms of points or rebates. Getting some money or vouchers back from all that you spend is a satisfying thing.

Don’t Spend Beyond your Means

This is the most important point, which many people miss and thus abuse their credit cards. Now after mentioning all the benefits in the first section and the previous point, I need to clarify this: I am not advocating wild heedless expenditure to chalk up points, rebates or get freebies. I am advocating that you maintain your lifestyle and spending, but just ensure that you use your credit card to make payments whenever possible. If you do this, you shouldn’t end up in a case when your bill is beyond what you can pay and you are bound to incur interest. If you end up needing to make a big purchase, then consider taking interest-free installments to split the cost over several months so that you can manage.

One common option for people who spend beyond their means is to do a balance transfer. While this option is good if you are already in credit card debt, the best thing you can do for yourself is to follow what I advised earlier and don’t put yourself in such a position. Balance transfer is a facility that most banks offer. Essentially, it takes over your debt to another bank. For instance, if you owe bank A $5000 this month, bank B may offer you a balance transfer. If you do the balance transfer, what happens is that bank B pays the $5000 on your behalf, and you no longer owe bank A, but now you owe bank B the same amount. What banks do to make this option more pleasant is to offer a lower interest rate than what you would have paid. The hidden ‘benefit’ for the consumer is that you end up delaying your debt repayment by a month (the month that you do the balance transfer). This only helps if you actually can make repayment the following month, and if you can’t, there are only so many banks around that you can transfer the debt around. The people that you commonly read about going bankrupt due to credit card debt usually use balance transfer to shift the debt around, but still continue to rack up expenditure rather than save to pay the debt off.

So the point is: don’t spend beyond your means, else no benefit that the credit card can offer can make up for the extra charges incurred.

Be Punctual with your Payments

This sounds obvious and simple, but can be a tricky thing if you are hanging on to several credit cards. An easy way is to set monthly reminders for bill payments, since there is a fixed recurring date each month for each bank. A better option is to fix payment by GIRO. Every bank should have a GIRO application form, and the credit card amount you owe will be deducted directly from your designated bank account. Note however that you must ensure sufficient funds in the account, because if you don’t and the payment fails, you will be charged a late fee, interest, and also an administrative fee for the failed GIRO deduction. And if you follow the previous point and spend within your means, you shouldn’t find yourself with a failed GIRO deduction.

If you always pay on time, you will not be slapped with extra cost. However, if by some chance you fail to make payment punctually, do not worry. Most banks want your business, and you can just make a call to the bank, speak to the customer service, explain your situation of why you missed the payment, and if you usually have good payment habits and records, generally they will waive the charges if you ask nicely.

Annual Fee Waivers

Other than the annual fee waivers that come with certain cards or promotions, you can always request for a fee waiver anyway. As I stated, most banks want your business, and if you call in and ask nicely for a fee waiver when you see it charged to your bill, generally the banks oblige, depending on how badly they want your business. The rule of thumb is: if you are spending regularly with that card, most probably they will grant you the waiver (and they continue to earn from the merchants you spend at). If you don’t use that card often or at all, then it depends on the bank. Some will not offer a waiver, and others may offer a conditional waiver, i.e. they request that you spend a certain amount or hit a certain number of uses, and they will remove the waiver.

Do take note that some banks have a practice of deducting the annual fee from your points (if you chalked up enough) by default. The easy way to circumvent this, of course, would be to redeem what you want with your points before the renewal month so that the points would be too low to deduct from, or if the bank has deducted already, once again call in and ask for a fee waiver and request that they return you the points, but this request often doesn’t get entertained.

Tue 23 Jun

I had a heavy breakfast at MacDonalds', and spent the rest of the day with Jadon.

Sometimes I have weird ideas - conspiracy theories to be precise. I was just wondering: what if SARS and H1N1 are experimental biological weapons? Maybe there is some terrorist organization, or pharmaceutical company (which developed a vaccine), or some military organization out there that developed this virus, and sent it out for testing? SARS was a deadly virus, but because it killed the carriers fairly effectively, the virus couldn't travel very far and very wide. H1N1 was the next incarnation to test how far a pandemic can reach, so it is a less deadly, more easily spread version. In that case, in subsequent years, we should see a fairly lethal (but maybe take longer to kill) strain that could spread fast, far and wide. Hmmm. I think I love the storyline of 20th Century Boys too much. Haha.

Wed 24 Jun

I had driving at 8 am in the morning, and I was so barely awake that I feared being a road hazard. Fortunately my instructor today was very chatty, so talking kept me sufficiently awake. He made me practise turning again and again so that I could get my hand movements right and become more nimble. He made me do many 3-point turns, which although not tested, he said would help me be more nimble. After that, I had lunch at the Botak Jones coffeeshop and my wife had Pilcolo pasta, and we spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place.

Thu 25 Jun

It was a long day today. There was a meeting in the morning in school involving all the staff, which stretched till almost noon. I grabbed lunch with my wife, and then headed back for a series of consultations till almost 4 pm. After that, I stayed in the staff room to finish some work, and in the evening, I made my way to Bedok Camp for Remedial Training.

Today's session was quite amusing. Because of the incident at Maju Camp, there was temperature taking outside the camp. We also needed to fill a travel declaration form, and because there was an IPPT test for the Phase II trainees, it was one long messy queue. I was there punctually, so I was done quickly, and I went to the warmup area to wait.

And waited I did. The warmup session was due to start at 6.30 pm originally, but the whole thing was delayed to 7.30 pm! When the PTI (Physical Training Instructor) came, he actually said that it was quite late, and that it was no point having training! He offered to train those who wanted it, and the rest could just sit back and relax. I couldn't quite believe it. But the most amazing thing was that everyone of us went forward, so he had no choice but to conduct training with the remaining time. I think after waiting one hour, we all thought it would be quite pathetic to stay and wait some more and tell people we did absolutely nothing.

At night, my wife felt hungry, so we went to MacDonald's for supper. We tried this new cinnamon melts thing, and it was delicious, but very sweet. I will definitely order it again another time.

Fri 26 Jun

I was at my in-laws' place as usual. For lunch, I was with my wife at 216 market, and I had nasi lemak from Hon Ni Kitchen, and the favourite ice lemon tea. We went shopping for stuff, namely a water pipe to replace a leaking one for my shower system. On the way, I spotted bags being sold at Song & Song. Since my current bag was old, and now the strap was soaked with sweat every Remedial Training, I bought a new Adidas bag for $30.

Sat 27 Jun

I spent the whole day in my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon.

Sun 28 Jun

I went to Simei to have a heavy breakfast at the NTUC foodfare and ate my staple fishball noodles before heading off to church service. I spent most of the time ministering to one of my boys, so I guess I'd better hear the sermon online to make up for it. I left slightly earlier with my wife and Collin, because today there was a special event. Collin is my financial advisor from Finexis, and his company was having a movie treat for the clients, at least those who were interested.

We rushed down to The Cathay, and the parking was so full that Collin dropped us off first and he went hunting for lots himself. We watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen! The best thing was that the movie treat included a bag of popcorn and a can of coke for each person. I had read mixed reviews on the movie, and the ones that rated it poorly talked about it being oversexed, over-crude and indecision on its genre. Well, I think I was just interested in the cgi, so the movie delivered brilliantly. I like how the current transformers franchise had made the robots more detailed and organic looking than the original cartoon counterparts. There was plenty of action, but my personal gripe was that there were too many robots. In fact, I would describe it as too many calefare robots. There were some that appeared without ever being named, introduced or referred to, and they were there just to get shot down or blown up. Especially the Decepticons' side, many of which were indistinguishable from one another. I think the Devastator looked spectacular. I used to have a set of Constructicons (I think that's the name, I vaguely remember) so that was nostalgic, but the current one in the movie looked way more bestial. The other gripe was the female robot (possible spoiler, be forewarned). I think the movie crossed bad territory here. In the old series, I don't recall there being any robot that can fully become an ordinary-looking human. The closest toy would probably be an armoured humanoid form. When that pretender showed up in the movie, for a while, I thought I was watching Terminator series of something.

After the movie, I booked a cab to rush down to Bedok Camp for Remedial Training. Today's training was a bit more intense, and we ran a total of 2.8 km. My legs were aching after that, and still had to chase after Jadon here and there. He has adorable actions these days. When we ask him to help us look for something, he will bend down very low and look under the couch, chair or other places.

I went back to school today for consultation with a student, and to finish up some administrative work. After I was done, I went to meet my wife for lunch at Spaghedies. The dory I had was quite good, especially the mushroom sauce. I liked my wife's lasagne too, but she actually preferred Pizza Hut's one, which I find too much of a mash of everything. The lasagne here was well-textured, and you can taste each layer distinctly, which I feel took better skill to prepare.

I spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place with Jadon, who was now much better. He had regained much of his appetite, and at least would laugh when I played with him. I think no one but a parent can empathize with the pain felt when a child is sick.

Anyway, it turned out that I was wrong about The Ultimatum. Felicia Chin was just physically abused, and no rape was involved. Sexuality was exchanged for sadism, so I must had been mistaken about the scriptwriters.

Tue 16 Jun

My wife and I spent the whole day at my in-laws' place. There at least is some free time during the holidays for us to spend quality time with Jadon, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

Wed 17 Jun

I had breakfast with my wife at 216 market and ate my usual you mian before heading down for my driving lessons. My instructor made me end the lesson opposite the driving centre so that I could go apply for a practical test day, and I ended up with 6 October! It was a lot later than I would have wanted. So let's just see how much bigger my wife's belly will grow, and hope that she can still drive till that date at least.

I came back to Bedok and bought some stuff before going to my in-laws' place. My wife and I had dinner at the Botak Jones coffeeshop nearby, and I ordered baked rice from Piilcolo (can't remember the spelling, since the sign looks terribly misleading), which turned out to be really good. I definitely like it a lot more than the pasta. We also shared a fish and chips, and after that, we headed down to Expo for our church's prayer meeting.

Thu 18 Jun

Today was spent on some housework, and then Remedial Training at Bedok Camp. To my horror, the training now seemed tougher than the last time I was there, and dragged longer. I remember it used to end by about 8.30, but now it ended at about 9 pm. So I bought my dinner from Bedok Food Centre (I think that's the name), and went to my in-laws' place to see Jadon. Hmm, I think it's more appropriate to call it supper since I reached there only around 9.50 pm.

Fri 19 Jun

My wife and I went to White Sands to buy some stuff we need at home, and we had lunch at Lerk Thai after much deliberation. We used to really like the food there, but there were two occasions we went there and the food was terrible. I guess they must had changed the chef at that point. We gave it another chance, and today's food was fabulous. So Lerk Thai has regained its status as 'possible food joint in White Sands'.

I went back home and was saddened to discover my hamster Beckham had died. Recently he showed sudden signs of debilitation, and I thought it was a bad sign, but I didn't expect it to be so soon. He suddenly looked extremely scrawny, and couldn't open his eyes much. Then I discovered two days ago that his rear was stained with urine, like he couldn't control his bladder or something. His body was still warm when I found him, so I suppose he died a short while ago. In an odd way his paws were clasped together like he was praying.

So ironically, the murderer hamster remained the last surviving one.

At night, J, Collin and Alvin came over to play mahjong overnight. We played for two rounds, and got too hungry so we ordered in McDonalds for supper, and played another round. Alvin was the big winner tonight, almost clearing out J's drawer, and mine was on the way to emptiness. His luck was so ridiculously good it was demoralizing to play because he just kept winning. Fast. And big. When your luck is that incredible, you don't even need your brains to play. We finished at about 4+ to 5 am, and I eventually slept at 6.

Sat 20 Jun

Although I was dead tired from the mahjong, I went over as early as I could to my in-laws' place. It was perfect timing that my wife decided to stay over at her parents' place as she didn't want my mahjong to disturb her and that she wanted to spend more time with Jadon, because Jadon fell ill and was running a fever.

Finally, Kah Motors' garage side called me, and told me the car was repaired, so my wife and I headed there to collect our car in the afternoon. We went home to take some stuff, and then headed down to Ikea. We wanted to replace the dining chairs in our living room for quite a while already. Apparently the PVC leather had started cracking and flaking quite badly, so we wanted to buy something that had no cushion. We shortlisted one dark brown wooden chair with chrome legs originally, but I still didn't like them much. In the end, we bought a totally plastic orange chair, which I guess could still loosely fit the colour scheme, but I think I need some other accessories to blend them in the decor fully.

After dropping off the purchases at home, we went down to my in-laws' place to check on Jadon. He was running a fever of 38.2 degrees Celsius quite consistently, so at night when the fever still didn't recede after we fed him some medicine we had from before for him, we brought him to the GP we usually go to. At the clinic entrance, the nurse took Jadon's aural temperature, and it was 39.4! Straightaway we drove down to KK Hospital to the Child Emergency section. Only two were allowed in, so I waited outside and played some games on my ipod to kill time. After a long while, my wife called to tell me that they were waiting for Jadon's blood test result. Eventually, the diagnosis was that he had a bacterial infection, so had to be prescribed antibiotics. Now this was the point when things cocked up. The doctor prescribed syrup based antibiotics, which made sense since Jadon was only ten months old. The pharmacy nurses said they no longer had such stock as there was no supply. What the heck??? Then the nurse gave my wife antibiotic tablets. For goodness' sake, how is a ten month old baby going to swallow a full sized tablet? My wife, now irritated, went back to the doctor and asked for an alternative prescription. The nurse at the pharmacy also said she would go consult the medical books. After wasting a whole lot of time, finally we got a different medicine. My wife wanted to write this down on a feedback form, and to her shock, she found only one form left, and it had scribblings on it.

Suddenly we had a lower opinion of KK Hospital.

By the time we got back to my in-laws' place it was about 2 am. By the time I helped wash the milk bottles and stuff, I took a cab and reached home only near 3 am. Hmm. Recent weekends were all sleep-deprived, I realized.

Sun 21 Jun

I skipped church service today and went straight to my in-laws' place to help them out. Apparently last night Jadon was crying most of the time and my wife and mother-in-law hardly got any sleep, so I spent Fathers' Day doing a father's job, which I guess was pretty apt. Thank God his fever completely subsided today, but he was still crying (and drooling) frequently probably because he was teething.

In the afternoon, after trying to catch a few power naps when Jadon was momentarily asleep, I headed down to Bedok Camp for my Remedial Training. Although this is certainly not a good thing for a man to get, at least it forces me to exercise when I don't have the time nor discipline to. Today's training had so much running my legs were really feeling it. Anyway, no surprise, since the army style of training is focused on overloading.

I bought dinner back for everyone, including my aunt-in-law and cousin-in-law (sounds odd), and spent the time either helping out with taking care of Jadon or in the meantime, watching the longlasting Taiwanese soap. Incidentally, I just realized from the trailers of The Ultimatum that I had missed quite a few episodes. Mediacorp certainly doesn't disappoint my claim that there is a rape in every serial. This one has two! One happened in the past apparently perpetrated by Ye Songnian, and the other one (I think Mediacorp is taking it up one notch) is a gang rape I think (I didn't watch it, but from the previews before the serial started showing, I think it is). I really think that the scriptwriters must have some devious scheme to screen-rape every single popular Mediacorp actress.

Thu 11 Jun

My wife went to school first for the last part of her camp, and I went around noon time to continue my Infocomm Club camp. Before I went to school, my wife gave me a call to tell me that she got into a minor car accident. Apparently when she was turning into the college compound, the car behind her still moved and collided into our Honda Jazz's rear. At least the lady at fault was sincere and apologetic, and cooperatively gave all the necessary details. This started a long process over the next few days on car insurance, workshop visits, and other things that proved very educational. Anyway, the bumper came off slightly, and our boot had a visible dent on the side that made it really hard to close the boot properly. Anyway, after she drove down to the workshop, the Honda people told her that the car was still safe to drive, and that she should send the car in on Mon, since they wouldn't have the parts to work on it and neither would they work much over the weekend. She also stopped by her gynae to do a checkup just to be safe, and thank God again, the baby was safe and sound.

That was only the start of the most unlucky day of my wife's entire life. In the afternoon when she was going back to her parents' place, when she was downstairs of her block, she got drenched. Someone from upstairs emptied a pail of fluid from the corridor! My guess was that it might have been coffee, because later on when I walked past the spot, there was a brown stain on the cement. My wife also said that it was sticky and smelled sweet. In any case, her whole body was hit, and even her phone too. She couldn't see the culprit, but nonetheless she filed a complaint. Since it wasn't a solid object being thrown down, it couldn't be filed to the police, and it ended up being routed to NEA for investigation.

I managed to complete a load of slightly overdue marking and other work while I was there, so that was a bonus. The kids were having games and all, and I was holding on to the main gate key. Originally, I wanted to go with them to dinner together and back so that I needn't make extra trips, but they were too engrossed in their games and couldn't give me a proper estimate of time that I quickly went opposite to buy back dinner at around 7.30 pm, and by then I was already famished. In the end, they only left for dinner at around 8.40 pm. Thank God I made the wise choice of walking a bit extra to settle my meal. Because of that, the whole schedule was pushed back. The new Executive Committee was to be determined today, so there was a round of hustings. That dragged to a whopping 2 am roughly, and two of my colleagues and I was there. One left early to sleep, while Jonathan and I went the whole way. We did that last year too when we were just Audio-Visual Club, prior to the merger that made us Infocomm Club. So we went to the classroom with the current Exco, and had a long-drawn discussion and finally came to a conclusion on the new Exco members at 4+ am in the morning. I finally was back in the staff room ready to sleep at 5 plus, and slept till about 8 am.

Fri 12 Jun

My colleagues and I went to give support when the new Exco was announced, and we talked to everyone to make sure that they were satisfied with their positions. When everything was settled, I headed over to my in-laws' place to spend a bit of time with Jadon, and in the afternoon, my wife and I drove down to Suntec City because my wife wanted to check out the maternity wear there, along with her close friend who also is pregnant and subsequently meet some other friends at Marina Square.

That was a bad, bad choice. Although we were conscious of the fact that the PC Show was held there, it didn't occur to us how tough parking would be. Suntec City's and Marina Square's carparks were full, and we ended up parking at Millenium Walk, and had to walk through a huge crowd to get to where we wanted to go. Along the way, I detoured to DC Superheros store and bought a black Batman tee with bling-blings that make up the Batman logo. Super cool. My wife bought a few pieces of clothes from Spring Maternity, which I sponsored, and then we headed over to Ministry of Food at Marina Square for dinner and dessert.

Since my hands were itching for mahjong, two of them came over to our place to play, and we were joined by another friend later on at night. We played all the way to the next day morning. I wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep, or just misfortune, but I lost a bit of money.

Anyway, the choice to play through the night was a bad one not because I lost money, but I was going to be a brother for my blood brudder Junzhong's wedding the next morning!

Sat 13 Jun

I was done sending off my guests at 4+ am, and I went to take a shower, grab breakfast, dress up, and another of the brothers came by at 5.45 am to give me a lift. We went down to the bride's place, got things prepared, and we went to fetch the bride.

We went through a surprisingly familiar tekan (torture?) session to blood brudder Yuren's. So much so that I believe that there must be some forum thread out there where the women discuss all their nasty ideas, and there is some formulaic template available. When we got there, we were made to wear disposable underwear with very cute stickers on it over our pants, and do stupid poses as we climb 9 storeys to the bride's home (in Yuren's one, we were made to wear diapers and strike yoga poses). Then we were made to drink a concoction of herbal tea with tobasco sauce. This was standard fare, so there is no need to compare. Then, to no surprise, we were given wax strips to wax our legs and use the hair-filled wax strips to fill up a certain word on a placard passed to us.

I could almost yawn, looking at how repetitious this is. I think this is the dumbest torture, because the only reasoning I have heard so far on why this was done was for the men to empathize with what women had to live with, and honestly, I don't know many women who wax their legs, or other, um, more sensitive parts. Anyway, I don't know how the fetching-bride ceremony had evolved to sessions for sisters to torture the groom and the brothers. Some women out there must had been sadistic to spread this into a 'tradition'. As far as I know, this 'tradition' is shockingly recently developed.

Then the groom had to sing a song very loud, which was pretty standard as well. Blood brudder Zhenxing, who was tasked with handling the ang pows, was careless, and when the sisters asked for the ang pow, he actually took out the whole stack of five and passed the groom one. Obviously the sisters would want all five and more. So in the end, after they got the five ang pows, they wanted more and shut the groom out. We had to go back to the car to fill one last ang pow and come back. I think this is the first wedding I helped out where I saw the groom get angry. Ah well. I guess the fact that it was raining made it feel like things were not going quite as planned.

Thereafter, it was quite routine, with the tea ceremonies and all. Blood brudder Shaofeng and I headed down to Kaki Bukit to pick up the roast pig inbetween, and by the time we had lunch and settled all the necessary, it was 1 pm when I got home. I had a quick one-hour nap, and I went with my wife to the hotel. Junzhong was having a solemnisation ceremony there at 6 pm, and we were supposed to have a briefing and rehearsal at 4 thereabouts, since there were going to be swordbearers.

I was quite impressed with the fact that I was running around fully functional on three hours of total sleep in two days.

I got the AV stuff settled, and while waiting for all the (late) people to arrive, my wife called me to inform me of a big sale. I didn't quite believe it so I popped over to Central from the hotel, which was just across the road (Swissotel Merchant Court), and checked it out.

I went crazy in the shop!

Club Marc was having a massive sale where everything was $15 a piece! Except some new arrivals, bags and blazers. I had bought stuff from Club Marc before, and I think the quality is good, so I went to try out work pants, casual pants, short-sleeved and long-sleeved shirts, and I spent an hour there. The best part was that if you pay with Citibank, on chalking up $150, you get a 10% discount, and a free membership card (which usually needs $300 of spending to earn)! I bought exactly ten items and got the discount, so I essentially paid $13.50 per piece for my one short-sleeved shirt, one long-sleeved shirt, one pair of funky black shoes (that I shall try sneakily wearing it to work...anyway nobody notices what men wear so should be alright), two leather belts, one pair of three-quarts, two pairs of casual pants, and two pairs of formal work pants.

This is dirt cheap to pay for the quality. Guys, take my word and go check it out. This is the best sale I have spotted thus far for GSS.

I quickly rushed back to the hotel, and surprisingly my absence was not detrimental, so things went well as planned. The Justice of Peace officiating at the solemnisation was this red-haired unconventional woman who spoke so dramatically and with funny intonations that I think if you put a tall conical hat on her and pass her a broom, she could well be a character in Harry Potter. She said offbeat things like 'marriage is between one man and one woman and no one extra', and she made the whole ceremony quite light-hearted. But she mispronounced Junzhong's name Kevin as Kelvin twice.

There were many guests at the banquet that were out to 'sabo' the bride and groom with either unpleasant concoctions or lots of liquor. I ended up the only brother who actually went to down a glass with two shots worth of Chivas Regal and two margaritas for the bride and groom, but for the rest he was on his own, since the friends insisted on him being 'tortured'.

And finally, I get my hard-earned sleep for the night.

Sun 14 Jun

I went to service as usual, and for cell group, we celebrated the birthdays of two members during our cell group (and lunch) at KFC. After that, my wife and I headed home first for me to get changed, and she dropped me off at Bedok Camp. I had failed last year's IPPT, so I was due for Remedial Training. Fortunately for me, today's session was purely briefing, so I didn't sweat one bit, because I woke up with a cramp in my left calf which gave me an annoying pain the whole day.

After the briefing was done, I headed back to Bedok, ate curry noodles at the Interchange and went to spend time with Jadon.

Mon 15 Jun

I headed down to Eunos for driving, which went relatively well. After that, my instructor let me end my lesson at Honda's workshop where I met my wife to settle the repairs and all. I think Honda's service staff were friendly, helpful and had initiative, so that made the whole troublesome process a lot less painful.

On coming back, I headed over to Hair de Vogue to get a haircut, and had a late lunch of fried fish bee hoon. Anyway, as a continuation of my wife's super suay day on last Thursday, her phone died, and I think it was extremely likely due to damage from the fluid, whatever it might have been, seeping into the phone. So I guess this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

In any case, my wife was furious the whole day. Apparently my sister-in-law was involved somewhat in the coming AYG event, and there was an email sent that offered a free flu jab for all who were involved. So my sister-in-law came over to our place to get the consent form (her printer was down), and my wife signed for her as guardian in the place of her mother, and my sister-in-law went down to SGH to get her jab.

And the nurse refused her! She said that it must be the parent's signature and that she needed proof that my wife was indeed her sister. That might have been protocol, or the nurse's own decision, but nonetheless it was ridiculously dumb. My sister-in-law went with a friend who had her grandma's signature and that was accepted when she explained that her parents were not around. My wife was so pissed by the incident that she was determined to send a complaint somewhere, either to SGH or AYG. Seriously, when my wife is riled, she is resolute at getting justice served.

Wed 10 Jun

I went back to school early today because the Infocomm Club (I'm one of the teachers in charge) was going to camp overnight for today and tomorrow. I went to draw the necessary keys from the Operations Manager first, and then went to do some work in the office. After running to and fro a little to settle some issues that cropped up, I went to Parkway Parade with my wife for lunch and to buy some stuff for Jadon.

We were originally planning to eat at Sakuraya Fish Mart, but we realized that there wasn't much cooked food items that my wife could eat, since now she shouldn't be eating sashimi or other raw food. We walked around and chanced upon this place Koo Kee Dumplings and Ramen. It didn't look particularly special, but we thought we wanted to try something different, so we went in. My wife ordered ginseng chicken ramen, and I ordered (a rather expensive $16) seafood fried rice in egg white sauce, one basket of six pieces of xiao long bao and an aloe vera and jelly dessert.

The dessert came first (we originally thought it was a drink from the photograph in the menu), and it was surprisingly good, although small in portion. Then the ginseng chicken ramen came. Again, we were surprised because in the picture in the menu, the noodles and the soup were separate, but when it was served, the whole thing was in one bowl. But the better surprise was that the food was superb! The ginseng chicken soup was rich in flavour, and you could really taste the double-boiled chicken taste, and a tad bit of ginseng to add flavour. The lean pork meat in the soup was tender and sweet, and so was the chicken drumstick, and the ramen was of good texture and quality. Then came my fried rice, which I should have guessed from the description was actually some variation of mui fan. The picture in the menu again deceived me because the gravy in the picture looked like it was just a sprinkling, but the actual dish had the rice swimming in it. But the taste was delicious! The scallops and prawns that came with it were fresh and naturally sweet-tasting. The xiao long bao was the biggest shock of all. Both my wife and I found the buns better than Ding Tai Fung's, which we consider to be very good already, because the xiao long bao had plenty of the 'soup' inside, and the skin was not too thin nor too thick, and the meat inside had good texture and was tender and well-mashed.

So lunch turned out to be a surprise.

We went around shopping, and I bought new clothes for Jadon, but setting my sights further, I bought for 12-18 months. I bought a sleeveless tee and a pair of beach shorts, and one pair of rompers with some cute cartoon fox designs. Not cheap too, considering that they were discounted, but I suppose Pumpkin Patch Kids is kinda branded? Next we went to Mothercare and bought a new set of milk bottles to replace the ones at my in-laws' place, which were becoming gradually yellow. So all in all, I already unknowingly chalked up $150+ expenditure. Since the mall was having some jackpot promotion with every $50 spent, I went to queue for a try.

I think the promotion really sucks. I got 3 tries at the machine, and out of the 3 tries, I won a $5 voucher. I had thought the voucher was a Parkway Parade voucher, but no! It was a Cloth-ier voucher. After queueing up, I won myself a voucher that I doubt I would use?

It was a genuine waste of time.

At least White Sands' promotion gives away $6 Asiamalls voucher (limited to White Sands only) with every $80 spent. No gimmicks, just a fixed 'rebate'.

My wife went to spend time with Jadon while I went back to school for the camp. When my colleague came and took over, I set off for Bugis where Collin picked me up and we went to Bukit Merah for dinner, and then for cell group. It was a long day.