Thursday, May 31, 2007
Today we celebrated blood brudder Yuren's birthday, although his actual birthday was in fact yesterday. Under usual circumstances, we gather at the birthday boy's place. However, today we only arranged to have dinner at Vivocity. I asked Yuren if he wanted to come over to my place first, and he did come over along with Shaofeng (we now call him Sao Feng, a.k.a. Chow Yun Fatt's character in At World's End). Originally I offered my place because we had nothing planned, so I thought I had much to offer with my Xbox 360 and computer (a new system variant of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons).
In the end, he brought over three B grade movies, and we had a marathon. We watched Hollow Man 2, which was a sequel so bad it didn't make it to the silver screen. We fast forwarded through all the boring parts and still had a sense of the predictable storyline. We then watched Feast, which was a monster-eats-humans sort of horror/slasher genre flick, and I was surprised that when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are not filming blockbuster movies, they were teaming up with Wes Craven (he of Nightmare on Elm Street fame) to do such movies. The funny thing was that the show was a parody of sorts of films of its genre, and had black humour. It had gore, and shocking moments, but it had a lot of funny parts, especially in the way some of the characters were killed. I think we were all laughing most of the time. We ended off with DOA, which was definitely way better than the last videogame to movie flick we watched - Mortal Kombat. He was right to bring these movies along, because these are probably the films our girlfriends wouldn't care to watch, and are most enjoyable watched in a gang of blood brudders.
After the movies, we headed down to Vivocity. The original plan was to eat at Carnivore, but our birthday boy didn't reserve a place, and Vivocity was extremely crowded, although not as bad as any day in Tampines. We ended up roaming around from Vivocity to Harbourfront and back again. We eventually ended up in this classy and posh looking place named Bosses, which had a much cooler chinese name 黑社会, which was probably derived from its black glass/mirror interiors. We had a crispy aromatic duck which came with really nice sauce, and the skin was reminiscent of KFC's original chicken, only better. We had this speciality fried egg, which came with crispy ikan bilis on top, and that was good. We had this wa-wa vegetables thing, and I still don't know why the name is like that, but it tasted good too, especially its gravy. We had this sweet and sour fish, which tasted like 咕噜肉, except that it was now fish. The dishes were all tasty. We had our individual rice and noodle dishes. Apparently the fried rice was really good, but the la mian was passable, and were quite small-portion considering the size of the bowl, and compared to places like Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao. My one was dry la mian, and the noodles were slightly undercooked. If I were to come again, I'd try the congee to see if it is comparable to Crystal Jade Kitchen at least, since the price range is somewhat similar (a tad bit more expensive actually).
In the end, he brought over three B grade movies, and we had a marathon. We watched Hollow Man 2, which was a sequel so bad it didn't make it to the silver screen. We fast forwarded through all the boring parts and still had a sense of the predictable storyline. We then watched Feast, which was a monster-eats-humans sort of horror/slasher genre flick, and I was surprised that when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are not filming blockbuster movies, they were teaming up with Wes Craven (he of Nightmare on Elm Street fame) to do such movies. The funny thing was that the show was a parody of sorts of films of its genre, and had black humour. It had gore, and shocking moments, but it had a lot of funny parts, especially in the way some of the characters were killed. I think we were all laughing most of the time. We ended off with DOA, which was definitely way better than the last videogame to movie flick we watched - Mortal Kombat. He was right to bring these movies along, because these are probably the films our girlfriends wouldn't care to watch, and are most enjoyable watched in a gang of blood brudders.
After the movies, we headed down to Vivocity. The original plan was to eat at Carnivore, but our birthday boy didn't reserve a place, and Vivocity was extremely crowded, although not as bad as any day in Tampines. We ended up roaming around from Vivocity to Harbourfront and back again. We eventually ended up in this classy and posh looking place named Bosses, which had a much cooler chinese name 黑社会, which was probably derived from its black glass/mirror interiors. We had a crispy aromatic duck which came with really nice sauce, and the skin was reminiscent of KFC's original chicken, only better. We had this speciality fried egg, which came with crispy ikan bilis on top, and that was good. We had this wa-wa vegetables thing, and I still don't know why the name is like that, but it tasted good too, especially its gravy. We had this sweet and sour fish, which tasted like 咕噜肉, except that it was now fish. The dishes were all tasty. We had our individual rice and noodle dishes. Apparently the fried rice was really good, but the la mian was passable, and were quite small-portion considering the size of the bowl, and compared to places like Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao. My one was dry la mian, and the noodles were slightly undercooked. If I were to come again, I'd try the congee to see if it is comparable to Crystal Jade Kitchen at least, since the price range is somewhat similar (a tad bit more expensive actually).
posted by MadPoet : 11:25 PM Wednesday, May 30, 2007
In light of what I needed to settle fairly urgently, I gave today's conference sessions a miss. I headed down to Singapore Power to settle the initiation of the utilities account for my new flat. After that was done, I headed down to Marine Parade's Standard Chartered to settle my renovation loan. However, the person said that it would be faster to go directly to the loans side through a hotline call rather than go through the bank itself, because the application would go through several processes before reaching who it should reach. Says a lot about the typical red tape in any institution actually.
My fiancee and I headed back to Home Haven to check out the fume hood once more, and this time, we met a knowledgable sales person who gave us a lot of information. If life is a RPG (role-playing game), I think I gained some levels in the past few weeks. The amount of information that is involved in buying beds, furniture, and appliances is overwhelming. Now I think I'm in a position to dish out advice to people who are planning to get married, after all the experiences thus far. In the end, we did buy the fume hood we were interested in, but we would leave the gas hob and oven for another day. We also bought bed sheets and a quilt cover. There are like ten thousand things to buy to set up a new home, especially one as big as a maisonette.
We went back to my place for dinner, and I headed out to cell group. We had worship session together with the girls from my cell leader's wife's side, and then we headed out to MacDonald's to talk. A lot of things surfaced today in discussion, and I think it was a good talk. Strangely, I think my current cell group's guys like discourse, and we can really talk a lot when the issues are close to our hearts.
I have just finished a short anime series of six episodes only by the name of Shinigami No Ballad or Momo, the Girl God of Death. After the monstrous looking shinigami in Death Note, and the black-robed combatant shinigami in Bleach, this is a refreshing change. Momo, the shinigami is a little girl in white armed with a big mean scythe and a black cat with bat wings by the name of Daniel. This is a short but extremely poignant series that deals with life and death. Each episode is a standalone story, although one character reappeared in a later episode. Each story revolves around a central character who has to cope with death in some way - death of a close friend, a loved one, family, or being on the brink of death. Momo is a sympathetic crybaby of a shinigami, and her role in the series is to help the souls she was carrying ease their regrets which prevent them from going to heaven, and in some episodes, she was just being nosy. There is some wry humour, and the anime, despite having such a supernatural premise, comes across as very down-to-earth because of the people each story revolves around. The ways that the anime show different people coping with death around them are thought-provoking and emotive, and the characters feel very real. A change in pace for an anime, no doubt, but an untypical good watch.
My fiancee and I headed back to Home Haven to check out the fume hood once more, and this time, we met a knowledgable sales person who gave us a lot of information. If life is a RPG (role-playing game), I think I gained some levels in the past few weeks. The amount of information that is involved in buying beds, furniture, and appliances is overwhelming. Now I think I'm in a position to dish out advice to people who are planning to get married, after all the experiences thus far. In the end, we did buy the fume hood we were interested in, but we would leave the gas hob and oven for another day. We also bought bed sheets and a quilt cover. There are like ten thousand things to buy to set up a new home, especially one as big as a maisonette.
We went back to my place for dinner, and I headed out to cell group. We had worship session together with the girls from my cell leader's wife's side, and then we headed out to MacDonald's to talk. A lot of things surfaced today in discussion, and I think it was a good talk. Strangely, I think my current cell group's guys like discourse, and we can really talk a lot when the issues are close to our hearts.
I have just finished a short anime series of six episodes only by the name of Shinigami No Ballad or Momo, the Girl God of Death. After the monstrous looking shinigami in Death Note, and the black-robed combatant shinigami in Bleach, this is a refreshing change. Momo, the shinigami is a little girl in white armed with a big mean scythe and a black cat with bat wings by the name of Daniel. This is a short but extremely poignant series that deals with life and death. Each episode is a standalone story, although one character reappeared in a later episode. Each story revolves around a central character who has to cope with death in some way - death of a close friend, a loved one, family, or being on the brink of death. Momo is a sympathetic crybaby of a shinigami, and her role in the series is to help the souls she was carrying ease their regrets which prevent them from going to heaven, and in some episodes, she was just being nosy. There is some wry humour, and the anime, despite having such a supernatural premise, comes across as very down-to-earth because of the people each story revolves around. The ways that the anime show different people coping with death around them are thought-provoking and emotive, and the characters feel very real. A change in pace for an anime, no doubt, but an untypical good watch.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Mon 28 May
I made my sleepy way to Jurong East interchange early in the morning. I was going to a conference with some colleagues and I opted for the free transport from the interchange to NIE. The silly thing though was that we had to report at the pickup point at 7.30 am, but the conference was starting at 9.15 am. It was for the late ones to do registration, which we already did, so I guess I should have gone there by myself. Anyway the coordination was terrible. The person in charge promised signs would be put up to direct us to the pickup point, but there was absolutely nothing. I managed to meet my colleague, so we took two opposite sides of the road, just in case. I saw some other teachers going to the same conference, and they had been waiting a while. Apparently, they called the number of the contact person, and couldn't get her. In the end, the bus came half an hour late, and we managed to eventually board the bus.
The speakers who came to deliver the keynote addresses were pretty good and interesting, although some of them had voices that were droning. The workshops which we opted to go to weren't particularly interesting, and I think at my school, there were projects we undertook that seemed more innovative, only that, I guess, they lacked the research and analysis factor that didn't turn them into academic-paper-producing projects.
Since I was in the area - the far western area - I decided to ask my cousins out for dinner. Surprisingly both of them had no plans for the evening, and Huijun even had the family car to drive. While I was waiting for them, and I was very early, I did some shopping at Jurong Point, and ended up buying another shirt (I resolve to stop buying shirts...at least till the next pay comes), and to kill time, I ventured my way to the arcade. I was mildly amused that a token can still last me twenty minutes in games such as Soul Calibur II and Marvel Vs Capcom 2. I know they are a bit dated, but it's been ages since I last played.
We decided to go to Holland Village for dinner, and ended up in Sushi Teh. Considering that I like Japanese food this much, oddly enough, this was the first time I ate there. I had an ebi don, and we shared 12 pieces of sashimi. We also had this dobamushi (dunno if spelt correctly...the teapot soup thing), and some sushi that had fried prawn in it wrapped in seaweed, and a layer of mango and roe surrounding the rice. Here's a shot of the food. It was shot in dim conditions, under yellow light, hence the bad picture.
Anyway, Sushi Teh is not as costly as I imagined it to be from all I heard. Food is of good quality. The ambience of the upstairs section was cosy and nice, but I realized that it is usually quite noisy at Japanese restaurants, even those that seem pretty high class. We had our dessert at Haagen Dazs, and called it a night.
Tue 29 May
I headed once again to Jurong East interchange in the morning for the shuttle service. Sigh. One more day tomorrow. Today's keynote speakers were excellent. One was presenting on a video game environment he created to teach a certain section of the curriculum. Another was talking about an assessment instrument that gave excellent and reliable statistical data about students in various countries, and was sharing some insights about the outcomes of different education systems. Oddly enough, the US fared not very well on this, and among the top countries were Finland, Hong Kong, and Korea. Singapore wasn't one of the countries that employed the tool, so I'm still trying to guess where we might be.
I headed down to Bedok after the sessions to meet with Ken, my interior designer. We had to iron out some other details, and finalize the electrical rewiring of the house (which costs a bomb in itself - more than my one month's salary). We wandered around to check out some appliance shops and furniture, and according to my colleague, my involvement in the wedding and renovation preparations seemed abnormally high, considering that I am a male. Quite a legitimate gender bias there actually, judging from the many complaints I heard thus far. I guess when it comes to shopping, and wedding plans, my instincts are more feminine than masculine.
I made my sleepy way to Jurong East interchange early in the morning. I was going to a conference with some colleagues and I opted for the free transport from the interchange to NIE. The silly thing though was that we had to report at the pickup point at 7.30 am, but the conference was starting at 9.15 am. It was for the late ones to do registration, which we already did, so I guess I should have gone there by myself. Anyway the coordination was terrible. The person in charge promised signs would be put up to direct us to the pickup point, but there was absolutely nothing. I managed to meet my colleague, so we took two opposite sides of the road, just in case. I saw some other teachers going to the same conference, and they had been waiting a while. Apparently, they called the number of the contact person, and couldn't get her. In the end, the bus came half an hour late, and we managed to eventually board the bus.
The speakers who came to deliver the keynote addresses were pretty good and interesting, although some of them had voices that were droning. The workshops which we opted to go to weren't particularly interesting, and I think at my school, there were projects we undertook that seemed more innovative, only that, I guess, they lacked the research and analysis factor that didn't turn them into academic-paper-producing projects.
Since I was in the area - the far western area - I decided to ask my cousins out for dinner. Surprisingly both of them had no plans for the evening, and Huijun even had the family car to drive. While I was waiting for them, and I was very early, I did some shopping at Jurong Point, and ended up buying another shirt (I resolve to stop buying shirts...at least till the next pay comes), and to kill time, I ventured my way to the arcade. I was mildly amused that a token can still last me twenty minutes in games such as Soul Calibur II and Marvel Vs Capcom 2. I know they are a bit dated, but it's been ages since I last played.
We decided to go to Holland Village for dinner, and ended up in Sushi Teh. Considering that I like Japanese food this much, oddly enough, this was the first time I ate there. I had an ebi don, and we shared 12 pieces of sashimi. We also had this dobamushi (dunno if spelt correctly...the teapot soup thing), and some sushi that had fried prawn in it wrapped in seaweed, and a layer of mango and roe surrounding the rice. Here's a shot of the food. It was shot in dim conditions, under yellow light, hence the bad picture.
Anyway, Sushi Teh is not as costly as I imagined it to be from all I heard. Food is of good quality. The ambience of the upstairs section was cosy and nice, but I realized that it is usually quite noisy at Japanese restaurants, even those that seem pretty high class. We had our dessert at Haagen Dazs, and called it a night.
Tue 29 May
I headed once again to Jurong East interchange in the morning for the shuttle service. Sigh. One more day tomorrow. Today's keynote speakers were excellent. One was presenting on a video game environment he created to teach a certain section of the curriculum. Another was talking about an assessment instrument that gave excellent and reliable statistical data about students in various countries, and was sharing some insights about the outcomes of different education systems. Oddly enough, the US fared not very well on this, and among the top countries were Finland, Hong Kong, and Korea. Singapore wasn't one of the countries that employed the tool, so I'm still trying to guess where we might be.
I headed down to Bedok after the sessions to meet with Ken, my interior designer. We had to iron out some other details, and finalize the electrical rewiring of the house (which costs a bomb in itself - more than my one month's salary). We wandered around to check out some appliance shops and furniture, and according to my colleague, my involvement in the wedding and renovation preparations seemed abnormally high, considering that I am a male. Quite a legitimate gender bias there actually, judging from the many complaints I heard thus far. I guess when it comes to shopping, and wedding plans, my instincts are more feminine than masculine.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Sat 26 May
I met my fiancee at Parkway Parade in the afternoon to go and scout around for good deals now that it is the Great Singapore Sale. She saw a cheap set of pots and pans available at Home Haven, so we went there to take a look, stopping by Isetan in the meantime. We eventually bought two frying pans from Tefal at more than 50% off, and a whole bunch of snacks. When we went to Home Haven, we found that the pots and pans were of some unknown China brand, and were quite ugly looking, so we gave it a miss. We did spot a nice gas hob and fume hood that were within our budget, but we are waiting to see if we can get a better deal elsewhere before we commit. Man, I didn't know a fully functional home would cost this much to furnish in terms of furniture and appliances. Scary stuff. Fortunately my brain is functioning at a high enough capacity not to be overwhelmed by all the details and keep track of all the various costs.
Afterward, we headed over to Katong Mall to check out this appliances shop that is supposed to be quite cheap. We didn't have time to check the prices in detail of the fridges and washing machines, so that would wait, but we checked out the gas hobs and fume hoods and concluded that the Ariston ones we saw at Home Haven looked the best thus far. We passed by Art Furniture next door, and found a nice good mattress there which I would change for my mum's bed once we move house. Super single pocketed spring mattress with orthopaedic function at about $370, after trading in (I never heard of mattresses being traded in, so this is a first) my current mattress, which felt like a good enough deal for me, so I ordered that.
Since we were in the area, we headed over to Astons to have dinner. The last time I was there I was hardly impressed, but I did not have the steak then. I ordered a medium rare sirloin steak, and my fiancee a sampler of four sausages, to give the place a second chance. The steak was indeed good, although I don't see why it is good enough to merit the incredible queue I see outside the place, if not for the low price. My steak was a tad too rare to be considered medium rare, and the sauce for the steak wasn't as good as the wild mushroom sauce that Phin's Steakhouse has (which I like a lot). I didn't quite like the sausages, but that is a personal preference, because I have always disliked the processed taste that sausages come with. The only one that didn't taste like that was the one with cheese, which was thick enough to mask the smell. Here are a couple of shots of what we had.
My sirloin steak, with baked potato and coleslaw.
The sausages. I think the price tag $12.95 (I think) for four sausages of that size is cheap.
After dinner, we headed down to Marina Square. We had initially bought a dining table from Barang Barang there, but apparently we had let the table sit in their warehouse for far too long, and they were eager to deliver. The only options I had were to pay warehousing costs (yuck), or to add an item to the order to delay the delivery further. I had already spotted a nice sofa bed from there at 60% off a while back, so it was a clear choice to me to get the couch for $196. It looks good, and it has a simple mechanism to turn it to a bed, unlike many complicated sofa beds I see that needs to move some levers and all. It seems like my guest room will not be as bare as I thought it might be, if all goes well.
Sun 27 May
I went to church service and had cell group with my boys. I headed over to the Food Expo at Hall 5 to grab some dinner, and along the way, we spotted this Living Showcase (I think that's the name) at Hall 6A, so we dropped in to see. We checked out a few air-conditioning companies, but we are still undecided about it. What we did manage to settle were the curtains, and I think the good thing is that we manage to get a supplier as my colleague suggested, which ought to be cheaper in cost. We also manage to order a clothes hanger pulley system. I spotted it the last time I dropped by the same fair, but had no time to check it out. Because my maisonette has a balcony with no other place to hang clothes, I figured we were going to need something space saving and retractable, so this was it. I think it is worth the cost to get it for the sake of the convenience next time. There was a lucky draw too, and maybe God will bless us with the top prize of a simple trip to Bali, and save us the vexing about our honeymoon, which is currently the least of our priorities. Heh.
I met my fiancee at Parkway Parade in the afternoon to go and scout around for good deals now that it is the Great Singapore Sale. She saw a cheap set of pots and pans available at Home Haven, so we went there to take a look, stopping by Isetan in the meantime. We eventually bought two frying pans from Tefal at more than 50% off, and a whole bunch of snacks. When we went to Home Haven, we found that the pots and pans were of some unknown China brand, and were quite ugly looking, so we gave it a miss. We did spot a nice gas hob and fume hood that were within our budget, but we are waiting to see if we can get a better deal elsewhere before we commit. Man, I didn't know a fully functional home would cost this much to furnish in terms of furniture and appliances. Scary stuff. Fortunately my brain is functioning at a high enough capacity not to be overwhelmed by all the details and keep track of all the various costs.
Afterward, we headed over to Katong Mall to check out this appliances shop that is supposed to be quite cheap. We didn't have time to check the prices in detail of the fridges and washing machines, so that would wait, but we checked out the gas hobs and fume hoods and concluded that the Ariston ones we saw at Home Haven looked the best thus far. We passed by Art Furniture next door, and found a nice good mattress there which I would change for my mum's bed once we move house. Super single pocketed spring mattress with orthopaedic function at about $370, after trading in (I never heard of mattresses being traded in, so this is a first) my current mattress, which felt like a good enough deal for me, so I ordered that.
Since we were in the area, we headed over to Astons to have dinner. The last time I was there I was hardly impressed, but I did not have the steak then. I ordered a medium rare sirloin steak, and my fiancee a sampler of four sausages, to give the place a second chance. The steak was indeed good, although I don't see why it is good enough to merit the incredible queue I see outside the place, if not for the low price. My steak was a tad too rare to be considered medium rare, and the sauce for the steak wasn't as good as the wild mushroom sauce that Phin's Steakhouse has (which I like a lot). I didn't quite like the sausages, but that is a personal preference, because I have always disliked the processed taste that sausages come with. The only one that didn't taste like that was the one with cheese, which was thick enough to mask the smell. Here are a couple of shots of what we had.
My sirloin steak, with baked potato and coleslaw.
The sausages. I think the price tag $12.95 (I think) for four sausages of that size is cheap.
After dinner, we headed down to Marina Square. We had initially bought a dining table from Barang Barang there, but apparently we had let the table sit in their warehouse for far too long, and they were eager to deliver. The only options I had were to pay warehousing costs (yuck), or to add an item to the order to delay the delivery further. I had already spotted a nice sofa bed from there at 60% off a while back, so it was a clear choice to me to get the couch for $196. It looks good, and it has a simple mechanism to turn it to a bed, unlike many complicated sofa beds I see that needs to move some levers and all. It seems like my guest room will not be as bare as I thought it might be, if all goes well.
Sun 27 May
I went to church service and had cell group with my boys. I headed over to the Food Expo at Hall 5 to grab some dinner, and along the way, we spotted this Living Showcase (I think that's the name) at Hall 6A, so we dropped in to see. We checked out a few air-conditioning companies, but we are still undecided about it. What we did manage to settle were the curtains, and I think the good thing is that we manage to get a supplier as my colleague suggested, which ought to be cheaper in cost. We also manage to order a clothes hanger pulley system. I spotted it the last time I dropped by the same fair, but had no time to check it out. Because my maisonette has a balcony with no other place to hang clothes, I figured we were going to need something space saving and retractable, so this was it. I think it is worth the cost to get it for the sake of the convenience next time. There was a lucky draw too, and maybe God will bless us with the top prize of a simple trip to Bali, and save us the vexing about our honeymoon, which is currently the least of our priorities. Heh.
Friday, May 25, 2007
It's the last day of school for term 2! We had a department breakfast with some nice nasi lemak and otah, and proceeded with about 2+ hours of meeting to finalize some things about the coming June Common Test and the last SPA marking. My fiancee and I left as soon as possible, and made our way to the banks to get some information on renovation loans. Sigh.
We headed down to Somerset area to collect some free gift she was supposed to pick up, and we went window shopping for a while at Plaza Singapura, and had a quick bite. Eventually, we strolled our way over to The Cathay. I haven't been there after it was renovated, and it looked so different. For some reason, the exterior reminded me of some set from some Hollywood movie. Anyway, the staff welfare committee secured for all the staff who signed up tickets for Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End, and a free buffet dinner at the Picturehouse Lounge. The food was not bad, although the selection was fairly limited, and the breaded prawns and chicken kebab were the highlight of the meal. I must say the staff welfare committee is very considerate to pass some of us tickets for the couple seats, although they were directly under the airconditioning vent, and we were therefore very cold.
I wonder if the Singapore Tourism Board paid any money to Hollywood to mention "Singapore" so many times, or does the name of our country sound so bizarre or exotic that it could be quoted in such a movie. While I still like Curse of the Black Pearl the best, and Dead Man's Chest was excellent for a sequel, At World's End gave me mixed feelings. I think it is a fitting conclusion to the first two movies, and it has certainly maintained the same style as the predecessors, but I find less humour, an odd pace at many moments, and too much chaos, especially with an overdose of pirates. The action at times were wild, although I think Dead Man's Chest had the most innovative scenes of the trilogy, and many of the stunts in this movie were repeats of the past. I think the interesting thing about the plot for this movie is the number of times characters double cross one another, and change the tide of events. The insight shots of Jack Sparrow's inner workings of the mind were entertaining at first, then cliched soon after. No doubt the movie is entertaining and doesn't feel like the 2 hr 48 min it actually is, and that anyone who had watched the prior two movies ought to watch this one for a proper closure to the storyline. However, I think this movie is just good, and not close enough to the superb quality of the previous two. That said, I think this trilogy is the most interesting set of movies for the adventure genre since Indiana Jones.
I saw the trailer to Transformers, and I think anyone in my age group who grew up watching Transformers will gravitate towards the movie for sure. The CG animation is impressive. I can't wait!
We headed down to Somerset area to collect some free gift she was supposed to pick up, and we went window shopping for a while at Plaza Singapura, and had a quick bite. Eventually, we strolled our way over to The Cathay. I haven't been there after it was renovated, and it looked so different. For some reason, the exterior reminded me of some set from some Hollywood movie. Anyway, the staff welfare committee secured for all the staff who signed up tickets for Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End, and a free buffet dinner at the Picturehouse Lounge. The food was not bad, although the selection was fairly limited, and the breaded prawns and chicken kebab were the highlight of the meal. I must say the staff welfare committee is very considerate to pass some of us tickets for the couple seats, although they were directly under the airconditioning vent, and we were therefore very cold.
I wonder if the Singapore Tourism Board paid any money to Hollywood to mention "Singapore" so many times, or does the name of our country sound so bizarre or exotic that it could be quoted in such a movie. While I still like Curse of the Black Pearl the best, and Dead Man's Chest was excellent for a sequel, At World's End gave me mixed feelings. I think it is a fitting conclusion to the first two movies, and it has certainly maintained the same style as the predecessors, but I find less humour, an odd pace at many moments, and too much chaos, especially with an overdose of pirates. The action at times were wild, although I think Dead Man's Chest had the most innovative scenes of the trilogy, and many of the stunts in this movie were repeats of the past. I think the interesting thing about the plot for this movie is the number of times characters double cross one another, and change the tide of events. The insight shots of Jack Sparrow's inner workings of the mind were entertaining at first, then cliched soon after. No doubt the movie is entertaining and doesn't feel like the 2 hr 48 min it actually is, and that anyone who had watched the prior two movies ought to watch this one for a proper closure to the storyline. However, I think this movie is just good, and not close enough to the superb quality of the previous two. That said, I think this trilogy is the most interesting set of movies for the adventure genre since Indiana Jones.
I saw the trailer to Transformers, and I think anyone in my age group who grew up watching Transformers will gravitate towards the movie for sure. The CG animation is impressive. I can't wait!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wed 22 May
Today turned out to be a day packed with activities. Somehow, I managed to squeeze out time to think through and finish the powerpoint slides for Innovation Day tomorrow. After lessons and work were over, I went down with some colleagues to Singapore Press Holdings for a Learning Journey. Apparently, my Corporate Comms head wanted the committee to go together and have a look at how a newspaper agency works. We got to their swanky new-looking building off Braddell by 3.30 pm, and one of the editors entertained us by telling us what it is all about (he was very entertaining and candid, especially when we asked about censorship, government elections, and other sensitive topics), and fielded our queries. We also sat in their evening meetings and got a glimpse of how they decide on what news to go where. It looks like an interesting job, but I think it takes a lot of passion to be there. The working hours sound quite disgusting, and it is a highly stressful environment. Imagine you having a major deadline everyday that you just have to meet. Most of us shared the same sentiments when we left the place - we love our job/we found a worse job than ours.
I took a train and then a bus down to Bukit Merah for a network meeting. 197 as usual disappointed me with a 18 min wait, and fortunately I still had sufficient time to grab dinner before the meeting. The sharing by pastor was very earnest, and I think some of the things he shared about how to handle youths were pretty good, and I think I'm on the right track with how I handle my boys, so that was encouraging.
Thu 23 May
Lessons are over officially! These two days are scheduled to be sports carnival, so there are no classes. Innovation Day started in the morning, and some colleagues were sharing about some things they learnt, and then the individual teams went up to present on their innovations. I presented on my card game with my colleague, and some colleagues later came up to me to give some words of affirmation on what we are doing with the game, so that was a boost of morale. I genuinely believe we got something good here. What I need now is pure hard statistical evidence to back that claim up.
I hung around school to wait for my fiancee, and cleared some last minute work. I was so tired somehow that I dozed off for an hour at my desk. We grabbed a late lunch at Bedok, and I headed over to her place for a rest when we realized that it was too late to go to the bank to try to secure a renovation loan.
I headed down to Bugis to meet shups! for dinner. I wanted to give her a belated birthday treat; the other day on her birthday, I had thought we were supposed to treat her, but somehow she ended up footing the bill. The restaurant she wanted to go to was packed, so we walked around a bit. I ended up at People of Asia, and bought three shirts at $28 per piece. I love the Great Singapore Sale! As shups! noted, when it comes to shopping, I am a far cry from the average guy. We headed back to Ma Maison, a Japanese-Western restaurant, and got a table at last.
The food was good. I had clam chowder to start with, and the flavour was thick without being cloying. My main course was this omu rice thing (butter rice wrapped in an omelette) with stewed beef in the restaurant's trademark brown sauce. This is a shot of what it looks like.
The presentation looks simple, but it was tasty. The brown sauce, I would guess to be based on beef stock, maybe with some wine, but I couldn't tell where the tanginess came from. Shups! had some battered seafood, and the batter was excellent. The fish and scallop tasted pretty fresh too. The price is not cheap but not expensive either, and a meal like mine ranged in the low $20+ range. The ambience is cosy, and I'll bring my fiancee there at the next opportunity.
After the meal, we went to play pool. Man, I have been so busy with work and renovation stuff that I can't remember when was the last time I played. Her friend YH came to join us, but he was just a novice, so I tried to keep him entertained through conversation in case he got intimidated. J came by to join us later because he wanted to borrow my pool cue for a competition. Shups! and YH left us earlier, and I had my private sparring with J. I won 2 out of 7 games, and I think that was quite good, considering that the last couple of times we played together, I think I lost almost all the way to him.
Today turned out to be a day packed with activities. Somehow, I managed to squeeze out time to think through and finish the powerpoint slides for Innovation Day tomorrow. After lessons and work were over, I went down with some colleagues to Singapore Press Holdings for a Learning Journey. Apparently, my Corporate Comms head wanted the committee to go together and have a look at how a newspaper agency works. We got to their swanky new-looking building off Braddell by 3.30 pm, and one of the editors entertained us by telling us what it is all about (he was very entertaining and candid, especially when we asked about censorship, government elections, and other sensitive topics), and fielded our queries. We also sat in their evening meetings and got a glimpse of how they decide on what news to go where. It looks like an interesting job, but I think it takes a lot of passion to be there. The working hours sound quite disgusting, and it is a highly stressful environment. Imagine you having a major deadline everyday that you just have to meet. Most of us shared the same sentiments when we left the place - we love our job/we found a worse job than ours.
I took a train and then a bus down to Bukit Merah for a network meeting. 197 as usual disappointed me with a 18 min wait, and fortunately I still had sufficient time to grab dinner before the meeting. The sharing by pastor was very earnest, and I think some of the things he shared about how to handle youths were pretty good, and I think I'm on the right track with how I handle my boys, so that was encouraging.
Thu 23 May
Lessons are over officially! These two days are scheduled to be sports carnival, so there are no classes. Innovation Day started in the morning, and some colleagues were sharing about some things they learnt, and then the individual teams went up to present on their innovations. I presented on my card game with my colleague, and some colleagues later came up to me to give some words of affirmation on what we are doing with the game, so that was a boost of morale. I genuinely believe we got something good here. What I need now is pure hard statistical evidence to back that claim up.
I hung around school to wait for my fiancee, and cleared some last minute work. I was so tired somehow that I dozed off for an hour at my desk. We grabbed a late lunch at Bedok, and I headed over to her place for a rest when we realized that it was too late to go to the bank to try to secure a renovation loan.
I headed down to Bugis to meet shups! for dinner. I wanted to give her a belated birthday treat; the other day on her birthday, I had thought we were supposed to treat her, but somehow she ended up footing the bill. The restaurant she wanted to go to was packed, so we walked around a bit. I ended up at People of Asia, and bought three shirts at $28 per piece. I love the Great Singapore Sale! As shups! noted, when it comes to shopping, I am a far cry from the average guy. We headed back to Ma Maison, a Japanese-Western restaurant, and got a table at last.
The food was good. I had clam chowder to start with, and the flavour was thick without being cloying. My main course was this omu rice thing (butter rice wrapped in an omelette) with stewed beef in the restaurant's trademark brown sauce. This is a shot of what it looks like.
The presentation looks simple, but it was tasty. The brown sauce, I would guess to be based on beef stock, maybe with some wine, but I couldn't tell where the tanginess came from. Shups! had some battered seafood, and the batter was excellent. The fish and scallop tasted pretty fresh too. The price is not cheap but not expensive either, and a meal like mine ranged in the low $20+ range. The ambience is cosy, and I'll bring my fiancee there at the next opportunity.
After the meal, we went to play pool. Man, I have been so busy with work and renovation stuff that I can't remember when was the last time I played. Her friend YH came to join us, but he was just a novice, so I tried to keep him entertained through conversation in case he got intimidated. J came by to join us later because he wanted to borrow my pool cue for a competition. Shups! and YH left us earlier, and I had my private sparring with J. I won 2 out of 7 games, and I think that was quite good, considering that the last couple of times we played together, I think I lost almost all the way to him.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Mon 21 May
The weekend felt really short because of the College Day on Sat, and I don't feel quite rested enough. I'm looking forward to the holidays at the end of the week, but then again, the first three days of the holidays I will be on course at NIE, and after a break on Vesak day the next day, I will be in school for my AVC's June camp till Sat. Therefore effectively, my holidays is reduced by a full week already.
Today I managed to find a little bit of time to chat with some colleagues. I haven't been able to do so for a long time, and as a colleague pointed out, she had been seeing me zoom past here, there and everywhere. After school, I headed to my fiancee's place, and we were evaluating many things about the renovation, because tomorrow we would be meeting our interior designer to select tiles.
Tue 22 May
It turned out to be another busy day today, with a meeting in the morning, and my having to rush a powerpoint presentation for the coming Thu's Innovation Day. Fortunately, this would be a short presentation, and hence there was fairly minimal work to be done, compared to the College Day powerpoint most certainly. After lessons were over, my fiancee and I quickly went to meet Ken, our designer, to discuss some matters of the flat, and when we were done, we headed down to Defu Lane to select the tiles.
Man, I didn't expect the decision-making process to be this complex. There were living room floor tiles, kitchen floor tiles, kitchen wall tiles, wall and floor tiles for three toilets to pick, so that took us about two hours on its own. Thankfully we were done in one day. I can barely visualize what it would look like when it is done, and at this point in time, I am quite optimistic about the final appearance. Ken detoured a bit to drop us off at Ikea Tampines, and we went to scout around for some furniture that we could get from there to cut costs. We had a good dinner at Ikea's cafe, and now I truly appreciate having an Ikea Friends card. Two free drinks and two discounted meals of the day (I only bought one, but that still saves) make a big difference in terms of cost. We came to some conclusions as to what we may need to get, and grabbed some brochures for information and further planning. I'll need to update my complicated 7-worksheet Excel file to maintain good perspective on my finances...
The weekend felt really short because of the College Day on Sat, and I don't feel quite rested enough. I'm looking forward to the holidays at the end of the week, but then again, the first three days of the holidays I will be on course at NIE, and after a break on Vesak day the next day, I will be in school for my AVC's June camp till Sat. Therefore effectively, my holidays is reduced by a full week already.
Today I managed to find a little bit of time to chat with some colleagues. I haven't been able to do so for a long time, and as a colleague pointed out, she had been seeing me zoom past here, there and everywhere. After school, I headed to my fiancee's place, and we were evaluating many things about the renovation, because tomorrow we would be meeting our interior designer to select tiles.
Tue 22 May
It turned out to be another busy day today, with a meeting in the morning, and my having to rush a powerpoint presentation for the coming Thu's Innovation Day. Fortunately, this would be a short presentation, and hence there was fairly minimal work to be done, compared to the College Day powerpoint most certainly. After lessons were over, my fiancee and I quickly went to meet Ken, our designer, to discuss some matters of the flat, and when we were done, we headed down to Defu Lane to select the tiles.
Man, I didn't expect the decision-making process to be this complex. There were living room floor tiles, kitchen floor tiles, kitchen wall tiles, wall and floor tiles for three toilets to pick, so that took us about two hours on its own. Thankfully we were done in one day. I can barely visualize what it would look like when it is done, and at this point in time, I am quite optimistic about the final appearance. Ken detoured a bit to drop us off at Ikea Tampines, and we went to scout around for some furniture that we could get from there to cut costs. We had a good dinner at Ikea's cafe, and now I truly appreciate having an Ikea Friends card. Two free drinks and two discounted meals of the day (I only bought one, but that still saves) make a big difference in terms of cost. We came to some conclusions as to what we may need to get, and grabbed some brochures for information and further planning. I'll need to update my complicated 7-worksheet Excel file to maintain good perspective on my finances...
Sunday, May 20, 2007
I had a splitting headache all the way since I woke up, throughout service and cell group, and only after taking a nap just now did I manage to recover from it. I still feel generally unwell, and I'm suspecting that the respiratory tract infection somehow got to my sinuses, but it's a wild guess. Cell group was interesting today when my boys were sharing some things happening in their lives. I appreciate the transparency in my cell group. Technically, they could have chosen not to tell me certain things to avoid risking my ire, but they chose to tell, which is a precious thing to me.
I finished watching the anime series Busou Renkin. It is an action anime generally, but has quite a emphasized romance between the lead characters nearer the end. The anime starts with Kazuki trying to save a girl Tokiko from a homonculus, and dying in the process. What he didn't know was that the girl didn't need help because she was trying to lure the homonculus out. In this series, homonculi are human-devouring monsters, and are a product of alchemy. On the other hand, there are alchemic arms, kakugane, which are weapons produced by alchemic powers, and Tokiko is an alchemic warrior. Using a kakugane, she brings Kazuki back to life, and he gets caught up in the battle between alchemic warriors and homonculi. One other main character is Chouno, a sick boy who eventually becomes a human homonculus (as opposed to plant and animal types) to leave his diseased body, and he is a flamboyant and narcissistic character who seems to hate Kazuki for defeating him, but actually holds him in high regard. The plot itself is not too bad, with some unexpected plot developments midway, but it still feels quite linear, with more powerful villains and alchemic warriors showing up along the way. The ending episodes seemed a little exaggerated somehow, and got a little soapy. Therefore in the end, I think this series is just above average, and not spectacular. Now onto the next anime, Shinigami No Ballad!
I finished watching the anime series Busou Renkin. It is an action anime generally, but has quite a emphasized romance between the lead characters nearer the end. The anime starts with Kazuki trying to save a girl Tokiko from a homonculus, and dying in the process. What he didn't know was that the girl didn't need help because she was trying to lure the homonculus out. In this series, homonculi are human-devouring monsters, and are a product of alchemy. On the other hand, there are alchemic arms, kakugane, which are weapons produced by alchemic powers, and Tokiko is an alchemic warrior. Using a kakugane, she brings Kazuki back to life, and he gets caught up in the battle between alchemic warriors and homonculi. One other main character is Chouno, a sick boy who eventually becomes a human homonculus (as opposed to plant and animal types) to leave his diseased body, and he is a flamboyant and narcissistic character who seems to hate Kazuki for defeating him, but actually holds him in high regard. The plot itself is not too bad, with some unexpected plot developments midway, but it still feels quite linear, with more powerful villains and alchemic warriors showing up along the way. The ending episodes seemed a little exaggerated somehow, and got a little soapy. Therefore in the end, I think this series is just above average, and not spectacular. Now onto the next anime, Shinigami No Ballad!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Thu 17 May
I had been having highly interrupted sleep lately because I wake up coughing in the night several times, or to go to the toilet because I drank tons of water, which I normally do when my throat is sore. I thought today I could go home and get some rest before I meet my fiancee after her cell group, and then my vice-principal informed me that my principal made some changes to her speech, and hence on my end, I needed to amend the slides. Now today was already my packed day, and I had to squeeze in another meeting, rush some marking and preparation for class, and right after, I went to meet my vice-principal to look at the new speech, and decide on what to change. She told me that my principal was coming back only about 4 pm, but I figured that since I was staying to rework the powerpoint slides, I might as well show it to her and get it cleared.
I only met her at 5.20 pm. But at least, we managed to finalize everything as best as we could. I rushed home, ate dinner, and went straight out to meet my fiancee. We had an argument due to misunderstanding, but we managed to resolve it fairly quickly. The wonderful thing I like about my fiancee is that she is emotionally composed enough not to flare up, or decline to talk about things (maybe at most for a short while to cool off), and rational enough to listen to reason and not throw wild tantrums. That makes it a lot easier for me to analyze the situation and figure out what went wrong at which point. I think mainly we were both just tired, overworked at this point, and high-strung at the wrong moment.
Fri 18 May
Today turned out to be yet another packed day, and I had some unexpected things crop up that I had to handle. Lessons went alright in that my voice didn't disappear on me or something. I really hope that some of the classrooms get air-conditioned soon, because in the afternoon, some of the rooms are so hot that it is almost impossible to concentrate. If I, being the one doing the talking, could also feel drowsy due to the oppressive heat, then surely the students can't be coping much better.
There was one more rehearsal for College Day, so I had to stay back. During the rehearsal I received a rude shock from one of my students who was supposed to represent the class and be present at the event tomorrow, which made me outright angry. I don't like to make sweeping statements, but I find that students nowadays in general are really more egocentric, less respectful and responsible. A long time ago, these students were relatively rare; nowadays, the rare student is the polite, considerate and helpful student. Regardless of the situation, I think if a person is assigned a job, task or role, and he cannot make it after accepting it, for any reason, the first thing he should do is inform the relevant people firsthand, and find a replacement for himself. This was not the first time I have had a student inform me of something last minute when he could have done it many days ago when things could still be done about it, and only giving a 'I forgot' as an excuse. This was also not the first time when a student, who has clearly been irresponsible and done something wrong, did not apologize at all and spoke with a everything-I-did-was-fully-justified tone, even after their wrongs were pointed out. I shudder to think of what our workforce will gradually evolve to be if these are the kind of students who pass through our hands. Suddenly, I see the army as a really important programme that may actually inculcate that little bit of necessary respect for others in the men, and hopefully remove part of that overwhelming egocentrism.
Anyway, back to the rehearsal. I realized that it is in times of big events like this and stressful circumstances you get to see the true mettle of a person. It is also through working with people you recognize who are the ones good to work with, and who are those who just outright pisses people off, or are too inefficient for words. It is precisely at these stressful moments you see the values of a person show - whether it is self above others, or others above self. I must say that during this year's many projects, big or small, I recognize that the people I like to hang around are like-minded individuals with high standards, and strong sense of responsibility towards others, and some of them really earned my respect. At the same time, the traits that didn't leave me a good impression to start with for some people got amplified.
I waited for my fiancee to finish her work, but apparently the team in charge of the prizes was going to work till about 9 pm, so she told me to go off first. I went with three colleagues to the Hong Kong cafe near Katong for dinner. The food was quite good, but there was so much (unexpected) spice in what I ate that killed my throat for the night, making me gulp down tons of water to quell my aggravated coughing. However, I didn't find the food that good to warrant such rave reviews. I think I have got to try some other dishes to verify.
Sat 19 May
Thank God nothing went wrong today, and all went well according to what was rehearsed. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan was there as our guest of honour, as well as three other MPs who are alumni. I have to admit one thing for sure - the prolific ministers are good at giving speeches. I don't know if they prepare their own speeches, or some underling writes it for them, but whatever the case, when it comes out, it sounds totally natural, and I doubt they ever would have time to rehearse. The reception food was disappointing this year, but I guess that should only be the case for the non-VIP counters.
In the evening, my fiancee accompanied me to dinner with some friends. It was shups!' birthday today, and we went to Wahiro at Katong Mall to eat. The food there is authentic Japanese cuisine, and tastes really good. The only thing I didn't like was the chawanmushi. Although the texture was really smooth, it was quite bland, compared to the salty kind I'm used to. So it was more of an accustomed expectation of taste more than a failing. The udon my fiancee had was excellent, in terms of soup and noodles. I had a yakitori gahon, which had grilled chicken (superb!), and two pieces of foie gras, which tasted sinfully delicious. My first experience with foie gras was in a not-so-good restaurant, so I didn't think much of it, but this one was goooood. The only catch was that my yakitori gahon was so small a portion that the bowl looked only somewhat bigger than the chawanmushi. To satisfy my hunger, I ordered something that I had been meaning to try for a long time because I see it on the anime I watch all the time - onigiri. It is just Japanese rice pushed into a triangle shape wrapped with seaweed. The one I ordered had grilled salmon pieces in it. Good food, but at a costly price.
I had been having highly interrupted sleep lately because I wake up coughing in the night several times, or to go to the toilet because I drank tons of water, which I normally do when my throat is sore. I thought today I could go home and get some rest before I meet my fiancee after her cell group, and then my vice-principal informed me that my principal made some changes to her speech, and hence on my end, I needed to amend the slides. Now today was already my packed day, and I had to squeeze in another meeting, rush some marking and preparation for class, and right after, I went to meet my vice-principal to look at the new speech, and decide on what to change. She told me that my principal was coming back only about 4 pm, but I figured that since I was staying to rework the powerpoint slides, I might as well show it to her and get it cleared.
I only met her at 5.20 pm. But at least, we managed to finalize everything as best as we could. I rushed home, ate dinner, and went straight out to meet my fiancee. We had an argument due to misunderstanding, but we managed to resolve it fairly quickly. The wonderful thing I like about my fiancee is that she is emotionally composed enough not to flare up, or decline to talk about things (maybe at most for a short while to cool off), and rational enough to listen to reason and not throw wild tantrums. That makes it a lot easier for me to analyze the situation and figure out what went wrong at which point. I think mainly we were both just tired, overworked at this point, and high-strung at the wrong moment.
Fri 18 May
Today turned out to be yet another packed day, and I had some unexpected things crop up that I had to handle. Lessons went alright in that my voice didn't disappear on me or something. I really hope that some of the classrooms get air-conditioned soon, because in the afternoon, some of the rooms are so hot that it is almost impossible to concentrate. If I, being the one doing the talking, could also feel drowsy due to the oppressive heat, then surely the students can't be coping much better.
There was one more rehearsal for College Day, so I had to stay back. During the rehearsal I received a rude shock from one of my students who was supposed to represent the class and be present at the event tomorrow, which made me outright angry. I don't like to make sweeping statements, but I find that students nowadays in general are really more egocentric, less respectful and responsible. A long time ago, these students were relatively rare; nowadays, the rare student is the polite, considerate and helpful student. Regardless of the situation, I think if a person is assigned a job, task or role, and he cannot make it after accepting it, for any reason, the first thing he should do is inform the relevant people firsthand, and find a replacement for himself. This was not the first time I have had a student inform me of something last minute when he could have done it many days ago when things could still be done about it, and only giving a 'I forgot' as an excuse. This was also not the first time when a student, who has clearly been irresponsible and done something wrong, did not apologize at all and spoke with a everything-I-did-was-fully-justified tone, even after their wrongs were pointed out. I shudder to think of what our workforce will gradually evolve to be if these are the kind of students who pass through our hands. Suddenly, I see the army as a really important programme that may actually inculcate that little bit of necessary respect for others in the men, and hopefully remove part of that overwhelming egocentrism.
Anyway, back to the rehearsal. I realized that it is in times of big events like this and stressful circumstances you get to see the true mettle of a person. It is also through working with people you recognize who are the ones good to work with, and who are those who just outright pisses people off, or are too inefficient for words. It is precisely at these stressful moments you see the values of a person show - whether it is self above others, or others above self. I must say that during this year's many projects, big or small, I recognize that the people I like to hang around are like-minded individuals with high standards, and strong sense of responsibility towards others, and some of them really earned my respect. At the same time, the traits that didn't leave me a good impression to start with for some people got amplified.
I waited for my fiancee to finish her work, but apparently the team in charge of the prizes was going to work till about 9 pm, so she told me to go off first. I went with three colleagues to the Hong Kong cafe near Katong for dinner. The food was quite good, but there was so much (unexpected) spice in what I ate that killed my throat for the night, making me gulp down tons of water to quell my aggravated coughing. However, I didn't find the food that good to warrant such rave reviews. I think I have got to try some other dishes to verify.
Sat 19 May
Thank God nothing went wrong today, and all went well according to what was rehearsed. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan was there as our guest of honour, as well as three other MPs who are alumni. I have to admit one thing for sure - the prolific ministers are good at giving speeches. I don't know if they prepare their own speeches, or some underling writes it for them, but whatever the case, when it comes out, it sounds totally natural, and I doubt they ever would have time to rehearse. The reception food was disappointing this year, but I guess that should only be the case for the non-VIP counters.
In the evening, my fiancee accompanied me to dinner with some friends. It was shups!' birthday today, and we went to Wahiro at Katong Mall to eat. The food there is authentic Japanese cuisine, and tastes really good. The only thing I didn't like was the chawanmushi. Although the texture was really smooth, it was quite bland, compared to the salty kind I'm used to. So it was more of an accustomed expectation of taste more than a failing. The udon my fiancee had was excellent, in terms of soup and noodles. I had a yakitori gahon, which had grilled chicken (superb!), and two pieces of foie gras, which tasted sinfully delicious. My first experience with foie gras was in a not-so-good restaurant, so I didn't think much of it, but this one was goooood. The only catch was that my yakitori gahon was so small a portion that the bowl looked only somewhat bigger than the chawanmushi. To satisfy my hunger, I ordered something that I had been meaning to try for a long time because I see it on the anime I watch all the time - onigiri. It is just Japanese rice pushed into a triangle shape wrapped with seaweed. The one I ordered had grilled salmon pieces in it. Good food, but at a costly price.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tue 15 May
I'm back to school again. I think lately rain likes me, because in the last few weeks, it rained in the morning whenever it was my turn to pay, and today was no exception. Worse still, the wind was so strong the rain was coming in almost horizontally, so shelter was rendered useless more or less. I recovered enough to project my voice and teach, so that was a good sign. I rushed to finish some slides for college day, and decided to leave the rest for tomorrow.
My fiancee and I went to meet our interior designer Ken, who drove us to our new place. I got the HDB person to come down and check what I thought were cracks and some other minor issues. The good news was that Ken didn't find much issue with the house in general, so there at least wasn't any hidden surprises, a.k.a. additional costs. Unfortunately though, my fiancee and I spotted some other things that we might want to change, so now it's back to the (budget) drawing board again.
Ken took some pictures of the place to start doing some perspective drawings, and drove us back. On the way back, he was nice enough to act as a tour guide and bring us around the neighbourhood. The pleasant surprise for us was that Elias mall, which was well within walking distance, was much better equipped than we initially thought when we last passed by. Originally, I thought I was doomed to eat only at Whitesands, but Ken pointed out where all the good food was, and I didn't know that the wet market there was quite big, and that there were two coffee shops and an air-conditioned food court in there. I think I'm too used to living in city central, while my fiancee is too used to living near a town central.
I just realized that the latest episodes of Bleach featured a Vizzard named Kensei, which is a pseudonym I go by. For a long time, I thought that name, a spin-off from my dialect name made to look Jap, wasn't a proper Jap name, but maybe I'm wrong. Hmm.
Wed 16 May
I managed to complete the slides for principal's address finally today, and showed the relevant heads, and they were very pleased. That gives me great job satisfaction, hopefully a larger performance bonus next year, and unfortunately, the same 'arrow' for years to come apparently. Lessons went well, in the sense that my voice didn't give way on me, but the true test will be the five periods tomorrow.
After school and staff conference, I had college day rehearsal till quite late in the evening. I realized that I'm there in duo capacities. One as the AVC teacher-in-charge to oversee and make sure all goes well in the control room, and one as an IT Comm member tasked to do the powerpoint slides. Considering that officially those who are on duty for college day need not be involved in the 30th anniversary committees, why am I still in the programme team?
One powerpoint down, another to go. Next week there is an internal Innovation Day, and I have to present on the card game I made and the action research I'm pursuing with my team. Thankfully, a colleague on my team is skilled in video-editing and is helping me edit the video capture of some student interviews and scenes of the competition held in Feb, else I'm really buried six feet under work. I think it is a real blessing to work with people who are like-minded, skilled or have initiative to offer help. I realized in the last few weeks that I really cannot stand incompetency, inefficiency, and unprofessionalism in the work of others, whether it directly affects me or not. If I'm given a job to do, whether it is within my scope or out of and whether I volunteered or it was thrust upon me, as long as it is assigned to me, I would give it my utter best shot. I don't think I'm perfectionistic (although some pointed out I do have that streak, but I guess it's a relative thing), but I think it is important to maintain high standards. I find it saddening to see people working without drive, doing just enough to get by. So few people I know exhibit genuine passion in what they are doing. And I'm just considering adults in what I'm talking about; if I were to include students, I think it would be generally plain mortifying.
I'm back to school again. I think lately rain likes me, because in the last few weeks, it rained in the morning whenever it was my turn to pay, and today was no exception. Worse still, the wind was so strong the rain was coming in almost horizontally, so shelter was rendered useless more or less. I recovered enough to project my voice and teach, so that was a good sign. I rushed to finish some slides for college day, and decided to leave the rest for tomorrow.
My fiancee and I went to meet our interior designer Ken, who drove us to our new place. I got the HDB person to come down and check what I thought were cracks and some other minor issues. The good news was that Ken didn't find much issue with the house in general, so there at least wasn't any hidden surprises, a.k.a. additional costs. Unfortunately though, my fiancee and I spotted some other things that we might want to change, so now it's back to the (budget) drawing board again.
Ken took some pictures of the place to start doing some perspective drawings, and drove us back. On the way back, he was nice enough to act as a tour guide and bring us around the neighbourhood. The pleasant surprise for us was that Elias mall, which was well within walking distance, was much better equipped than we initially thought when we last passed by. Originally, I thought I was doomed to eat only at Whitesands, but Ken pointed out where all the good food was, and I didn't know that the wet market there was quite big, and that there were two coffee shops and an air-conditioned food court in there. I think I'm too used to living in city central, while my fiancee is too used to living near a town central.
I just realized that the latest episodes of Bleach featured a Vizzard named Kensei, which is a pseudonym I go by. For a long time, I thought that name, a spin-off from my dialect name made to look Jap, wasn't a proper Jap name, but maybe I'm wrong. Hmm.
Wed 16 May
I managed to complete the slides for principal's address finally today, and showed the relevant heads, and they were very pleased. That gives me great job satisfaction, hopefully a larger performance bonus next year, and unfortunately, the same 'arrow' for years to come apparently. Lessons went well, in the sense that my voice didn't give way on me, but the true test will be the five periods tomorrow.
After school and staff conference, I had college day rehearsal till quite late in the evening. I realized that I'm there in duo capacities. One as the AVC teacher-in-charge to oversee and make sure all goes well in the control room, and one as an IT Comm member tasked to do the powerpoint slides. Considering that officially those who are on duty for college day need not be involved in the 30th anniversary committees, why am I still in the programme team?
One powerpoint down, another to go. Next week there is an internal Innovation Day, and I have to present on the card game I made and the action research I'm pursuing with my team. Thankfully, a colleague on my team is skilled in video-editing and is helping me edit the video capture of some student interviews and scenes of the competition held in Feb, else I'm really buried six feet under work. I think it is a real blessing to work with people who are like-minded, skilled or have initiative to offer help. I realized in the last few weeks that I really cannot stand incompetency, inefficiency, and unprofessionalism in the work of others, whether it directly affects me or not. If I'm given a job to do, whether it is within my scope or out of and whether I volunteered or it was thrust upon me, as long as it is assigned to me, I would give it my utter best shot. I don't think I'm perfectionistic (although some pointed out I do have that streak, but I guess it's a relative thing), but I think it is important to maintain high standards. I find it saddening to see people working without drive, doing just enough to get by. So few people I know exhibit genuine passion in what they are doing. And I'm just considering adults in what I'm talking about; if I were to include students, I think it would be generally plain mortifying.
Monday, May 14, 2007
I'm on MC today. As for rest, I only managed to have some. In the end, I'm still rushing out the powerpoint needed for College Day on Saturday. I figured that it will be needed on the full rehearsal this Wednesday, which doesn't leave me with much time. I think Term 2 was a really hectic term, especially because of the many school events that are scheduled for this term. Next term with the 30th anniversary Homecoming Dinner, I'll have more work cut out for me.
Lui pai tan ah (money hard to earn).
Lui pai tan ah (money hard to earn).
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sat 12 May
I thought I was feeling better (deceived yet again), and in the afternoon, I went down with my mother to view the flat and check for defects, if any. There was no other time to do it since HDB only gave 7 days to report any flaws, cracks or defects, and if I had gone down after work during the last five days, I wouldn't be able to see anything since it's late evening. My fiancee also went of course, and brought along her mother, sister and aunt. Everything seems fine except the balcony, and both my fiancee and I felt like the whole house was smaller than it was supposed to be. Maybe it's because of the low and big cornices?
After checking out the flat, we went to Crystal Jade for dinner. We were treating our respective mothers to an early Mothers' Day dinner. Here's a shot of my mom and me.
Here's another shot, with my fiancee and my mum.
It was just a simple dinner treat, and after that we all went to walk around at Courts to check out appliances for the new house. I seriously think Tampines is way too over-populated. I don't understand why people can go there and squeeze with so many people. The queues for restaurants and cabs are so scarily long, and the roads at the malls are all jammed up. At least at Pasir Ris side, the current biggest development seems to be at Downtown East, so I shouldn't see the same problem plague that area.
I just finished watching the anime series Shakugan no Shana, and it was not bad. It turned out to be another action and fighting anime with a lovey-dovey budding romance built in. The protagonist Yuji was caught in a time and space freeze when some Rinne, monsters working for Kings of Guze (humanoid monsters who feed on powers of existences), were feeding on humans. Once the power of existence of a human is consumed, the human ceases to exist, and all traces of the person's existence, including other people's memories of him, will vanish. This was when Nietono no Shana, a girl with blazing eyes, showed up to save him (sort of). That name is just the name of her sword, and she is a nameless Flame Haze, a human with a contract to a King of Guze (who believes in balance) to hunt down renegade Kings of Guze who disturb the balance of existence. This was when Yuji found out that he was just a Torch, which is a replacement existence that Flame Haze 'installs' to let a consumed victim slowly vanish into non-existence, and that implies Yuji had already been 'eaten' long ago. The rest of the anime builds on this premise, and centres around Yuji, who is a really unusual Torch, and the slow romance between him and Shana (he named her).
The premise of the anime was interesting, going beyond the typical idea of either predatory monsters (as in really eating a human) or vampirism (sucking blood). The way the flame of existence is depicted seems to be the Japanese mystical belief of what the human soul looks like (I've only seen this in other manga or anime, but I assume that it had to be based on some kind of existing mythology). Shana is depicted as a little girl, so I'm not sure if that is to appeal to loli fans. I don't really like the character design, in that both the guys and girls have really big round eyes. The storyline itself is not bad, with good development of character for the main characters, so overall it is a good anime, but not so superb to be a must-watch. Now on to the next anime, Busou Renkin (武装炼金), which I think can loosely translate to Alchemic Arms. The terms used, including Homonculi and Alchemy, seem reminiscent of Full Metal Alchemist, although the premise is very different, but no doubt, I'll end up comparing the two, since there is some similarity.
Sun 13 May
My sickness took a turn for the worse, so I ended up having to see a doctor in the morning. I waited more than an hour for my turn, because the doctor went on a holiday, and I am guessing that there was a buildup of patient cases. Anyway, the diagnosis is that I have recovered from flu, but that there was a secondary complication in that my respiratory tract got infected by bacteria, and hence there was so much mucus and phlegm, and my heavy head was due to the sinuses being infected. In any case, the doctor prescribed a heavy dosage of medicine and gave me MC for tomorrow. I basically slept the afternoon away after lunch because the medicine was a total knockout.
I thought I was feeling better (deceived yet again), and in the afternoon, I went down with my mother to view the flat and check for defects, if any. There was no other time to do it since HDB only gave 7 days to report any flaws, cracks or defects, and if I had gone down after work during the last five days, I wouldn't be able to see anything since it's late evening. My fiancee also went of course, and brought along her mother, sister and aunt. Everything seems fine except the balcony, and both my fiancee and I felt like the whole house was smaller than it was supposed to be. Maybe it's because of the low and big cornices?
After checking out the flat, we went to Crystal Jade for dinner. We were treating our respective mothers to an early Mothers' Day dinner. Here's a shot of my mom and me.
Here's another shot, with my fiancee and my mum.
It was just a simple dinner treat, and after that we all went to walk around at Courts to check out appliances for the new house. I seriously think Tampines is way too over-populated. I don't understand why people can go there and squeeze with so many people. The queues for restaurants and cabs are so scarily long, and the roads at the malls are all jammed up. At least at Pasir Ris side, the current biggest development seems to be at Downtown East, so I shouldn't see the same problem plague that area.
I just finished watching the anime series Shakugan no Shana, and it was not bad. It turned out to be another action and fighting anime with a lovey-dovey budding romance built in. The protagonist Yuji was caught in a time and space freeze when some Rinne, monsters working for Kings of Guze (humanoid monsters who feed on powers of existences), were feeding on humans. Once the power of existence of a human is consumed, the human ceases to exist, and all traces of the person's existence, including other people's memories of him, will vanish. This was when Nietono no Shana, a girl with blazing eyes, showed up to save him (sort of). That name is just the name of her sword, and she is a nameless Flame Haze, a human with a contract to a King of Guze (who believes in balance) to hunt down renegade Kings of Guze who disturb the balance of existence. This was when Yuji found out that he was just a Torch, which is a replacement existence that Flame Haze 'installs' to let a consumed victim slowly vanish into non-existence, and that implies Yuji had already been 'eaten' long ago. The rest of the anime builds on this premise, and centres around Yuji, who is a really unusual Torch, and the slow romance between him and Shana (he named her).
The premise of the anime was interesting, going beyond the typical idea of either predatory monsters (as in really eating a human) or vampirism (sucking blood). The way the flame of existence is depicted seems to be the Japanese mystical belief of what the human soul looks like (I've only seen this in other manga or anime, but I assume that it had to be based on some kind of existing mythology). Shana is depicted as a little girl, so I'm not sure if that is to appeal to loli fans. I don't really like the character design, in that both the guys and girls have really big round eyes. The storyline itself is not bad, with good development of character for the main characters, so overall it is a good anime, but not so superb to be a must-watch. Now on to the next anime, Busou Renkin (武装炼金), which I think can loosely translate to Alchemic Arms. The terms used, including Homonculi and Alchemy, seem reminiscent of Full Metal Alchemist, although the premise is very different, but no doubt, I'll end up comparing the two, since there is some similarity.
Sun 13 May
My sickness took a turn for the worse, so I ended up having to see a doctor in the morning. I waited more than an hour for my turn, because the doctor went on a holiday, and I am guessing that there was a buildup of patient cases. Anyway, the diagnosis is that I have recovered from flu, but that there was a secondary complication in that my respiratory tract got infected by bacteria, and hence there was so much mucus and phlegm, and my heavy head was due to the sinuses being infected. In any case, the doctor prescribed a heavy dosage of medicine and gave me MC for tomorrow. I basically slept the afternoon away after lunch because the medicine was a total knockout.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Thu 10 May
I think I overestimated myself this time. I'm sicker than I perceived myself to be. Worse still, my illness is highly deceptive. I wake up in the morning feeling better, and having my voice intact, except maybe sounding a little nasal. Two hours later, my head feels like the centre of gravity of my whole body is located there, and my throat goes hoarse. It is definitely not just a throat infection, but it doesn't feel like flu either because I don't feel the lethargy and body aches, and there hasn't been fever. Anyway, I think the staff room is a highly contagious environment. One bug hits one person, and slowly down the row, everyone else gets it.
I went home quickly to take a nap and rest. Each time I wake up from a nap, I am similarly deceived. Thinking I'm somewhat better, I went to meet my fiancee at Esplanade. We were supposed to have a triple date with two other gals in her cell group and their respective boyfriends.
We went to Via Mar for dinner, and ordered to share as a table this squid ink rice with prawns, baby squids and small clams, poached cod, escargot (one snail per person), calamari, and topped off with dessert. We shared banana wrap, which came in six pieces, tasting like goreng pisang with spring roll skin, and my fiancee and I shared something equivalent to creme brulee. Considering all that we ordered, it came up to about $18 per person, which was fair, but the portions weren't big enough for the guys. The cod was very fresh, although a little bit too salty. The squid ink rice tasted interesting, and it was the first time I was trying it, but the whole dish was very thick on taste. Although it was meant to serve 3-4 persons, I think having 6 persons share it was just right, else it would be too gelat. The escargot was excellent, being quite tender, and not as rubbery as some of those I ate before. The creme brulee was delicious, and I ate almost three-quarters of it (portion was big enough for two persons) because my fiancee gave up halfway. Being the foolhardy man that I am, I ate all those sweet and/or fried things. Surprisingly my condition wasn't aggravated, but it is probably the reason why my condition didn't improve either. Heh.
Fri 11 May
Out of nowhere, I had a packed day because I had to meet my vice-principal to discuss the details of the powerpoint slides I'm doing for college day. Considering all the recent powerpoint presentations I have done - roadshow, TA Open House, advert for the 30th anniversary stamp collection, and this current one, I think I seem to be the unofficial PowerPoint Man of the school, just as my colleague ZH is the Video Man. Having simultaneous expertise in IT and design equals to getting more frequently 'arrowed'. I'm still trying to decide if this is a bane or a boon. I then had to video interviews with a couple of students about my card game, and guess what, I have to prepare yet another presentation, but this one for myself, for Innovation Day, to share what I've done with the rest of the staff. On hindsight, if I plot the number of tasks assigned in an entire year against the years I am teaching, I see an exponential trend upwards. Not a good trend. Linear would have been tolerable.
I had enough voice to teach my lessons of the day, surprisingly. Despite bringing along this portable speaker that my fiancee lent me, I didn't use it because it just felt funny to me (and my students). After school was over, I rushed home to sleep, but no matter how much I rest, I don't seem to get better, so I doubt it's flu. What the heck got me?
I think I overestimated myself this time. I'm sicker than I perceived myself to be. Worse still, my illness is highly deceptive. I wake up in the morning feeling better, and having my voice intact, except maybe sounding a little nasal. Two hours later, my head feels like the centre of gravity of my whole body is located there, and my throat goes hoarse. It is definitely not just a throat infection, but it doesn't feel like flu either because I don't feel the lethargy and body aches, and there hasn't been fever. Anyway, I think the staff room is a highly contagious environment. One bug hits one person, and slowly down the row, everyone else gets it.
I went home quickly to take a nap and rest. Each time I wake up from a nap, I am similarly deceived. Thinking I'm somewhat better, I went to meet my fiancee at Esplanade. We were supposed to have a triple date with two other gals in her cell group and their respective boyfriends.
We went to Via Mar for dinner, and ordered to share as a table this squid ink rice with prawns, baby squids and small clams, poached cod, escargot (one snail per person), calamari, and topped off with dessert. We shared banana wrap, which came in six pieces, tasting like goreng pisang with spring roll skin, and my fiancee and I shared something equivalent to creme brulee. Considering all that we ordered, it came up to about $18 per person, which was fair, but the portions weren't big enough for the guys. The cod was very fresh, although a little bit too salty. The squid ink rice tasted interesting, and it was the first time I was trying it, but the whole dish was very thick on taste. Although it was meant to serve 3-4 persons, I think having 6 persons share it was just right, else it would be too gelat. The escargot was excellent, being quite tender, and not as rubbery as some of those I ate before. The creme brulee was delicious, and I ate almost three-quarters of it (portion was big enough for two persons) because my fiancee gave up halfway. Being the foolhardy man that I am, I ate all those sweet and/or fried things. Surprisingly my condition wasn't aggravated, but it is probably the reason why my condition didn't improve either. Heh.
Fri 11 May
Out of nowhere, I had a packed day because I had to meet my vice-principal to discuss the details of the powerpoint slides I'm doing for college day. Considering all the recent powerpoint presentations I have done - roadshow, TA Open House, advert for the 30th anniversary stamp collection, and this current one, I think I seem to be the unofficial PowerPoint Man of the school, just as my colleague ZH is the Video Man. Having simultaneous expertise in IT and design equals to getting more frequently 'arrowed'. I'm still trying to decide if this is a bane or a boon. I then had to video interviews with a couple of students about my card game, and guess what, I have to prepare yet another presentation, but this one for myself, for Innovation Day, to share what I've done with the rest of the staff. On hindsight, if I plot the number of tasks assigned in an entire year against the years I am teaching, I see an exponential trend upwards. Not a good trend. Linear would have been tolerable.
I had enough voice to teach my lessons of the day, surprisingly. Despite bringing along this portable speaker that my fiancee lent me, I didn't use it because it just felt funny to me (and my students). After school was over, I rushed home to sleep, but no matter how much I rest, I don't seem to get better, so I doubt it's flu. What the heck got me?
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Tue 8 May
I'm actually on MC today, but I don't even have the luxury of resting, because the year 1 chemistry team is so shorthanded that if I do not show up, my class doing SPA will be short of an assessor. So coughing badly and voiceless as I was, I took a cab to school to conduct the SPA and one tutorial, which fortunately were my lessons for today, and then dragged myself home to sleep. I suspect the doctor was wrong in his diagnosis. He said that I had a throat infection, but there's this distinct flu feeling/smell in my nose that seemed unmistakable.
Wed 9 May
What a horrible day today was. It started in the morning when I couldn't get a cab for a while, and ended up with heavy traffic that costed me 1 more buck than usual. But that was relatively a small irritation compared with what was to come. During assembly, the mike had no sound. I went up to the podium to rectify the situation, and fortunately, my AV experience from yesterdays served me sufficiently to solve the problem. At that point, I was already upset with my AVC for not testing the mike at first, and not coming down swiftly to fix the problem. Then came the college anthem, which proved to be a deviant piece of music. I was originally upset because I thought my AVC made another mistake. I think the whole college was stifling laughter, but I had a straight face (according to my student) because I was seething with anger by then. I raged up to the AVC room, and scolded the whole lot after some interrogation, who utterly disappointed me in many respects, not counting the weird college anthem.
It turned out that a certain teacher had passed them the disc with the experimental anthem and asked them to play it (without informing me), and according to that teacher, she had written an announcement in the book about trying out the new anthem, but strangely enough, after I questioned many colleagues and students, she was the only one who had heard her announcement being made. Great. Now the whole school thinks the AVC screwed up when they hadn't.
I showed the roadshow slides to principal and she liked it, but wanted some minor changes. That was fine with me, of course. And then I heard the news that I would be marking the year 1 June Common Test instead of the year 2 because I have two TA3 (equivalent to JC1) classes, and the year 1 team was shorthanded. Shorthanded implies that there are more scripts to mark, but I have no problem about marking. The next piece of news is that I will be marking the year 1 SPA alongside my fellow TA3 tutor, albeit a smaller load. The only issue there is that I have already marked a full load of the year 2 batch of SPA, so this, in fact, is additional work. It is tough straddling these two levels, man. The next thing to come my way is that I am to help my principal prepare her college day powerpoint slides. Now I have no problem with doing that, because it doesn't take me much time to do the powerpoint part itself. But the bottleneck comes from the fact that I need to liaise with the photography club and sieve through, oh, just tens of thousands of photographs to find some useful ones to decorate the powerpoint. I have no issue if I'm needed to help do design-related stuff, because I think few people around are able to do it, but come on, at least spare me the menial mind-numbing parts. Am I too darn efficient or something? Cause it looks to me like nobody remembers that I'm preparing for a wedding, and renovating a new house. At this rate, I think I'll ask for permission to come to school everyday in a Superman t-shirt, because it fits me to a tee right now.
The only good thing to come out of today is the fact that my fiancee and I have selected our interior designer to do the renovation. His quotation is higher than any others I have had so far, but also contains the most things that we want and need. In any case, plus the electrical wiring, the renovation cost is going to hit a grand total of slightly more than $50k. Not counting appliances. Once again, I am entering the negative nett worth region with a big bank loan liability. I think I can start eating grass for the next few months. Moo.
I'm actually on MC today, but I don't even have the luxury of resting, because the year 1 chemistry team is so shorthanded that if I do not show up, my class doing SPA will be short of an assessor. So coughing badly and voiceless as I was, I took a cab to school to conduct the SPA and one tutorial, which fortunately were my lessons for today, and then dragged myself home to sleep. I suspect the doctor was wrong in his diagnosis. He said that I had a throat infection, but there's this distinct flu feeling/smell in my nose that seemed unmistakable.
Wed 9 May
What a horrible day today was. It started in the morning when I couldn't get a cab for a while, and ended up with heavy traffic that costed me 1 more buck than usual. But that was relatively a small irritation compared with what was to come. During assembly, the mike had no sound. I went up to the podium to rectify the situation, and fortunately, my AV experience from yesterdays served me sufficiently to solve the problem. At that point, I was already upset with my AVC for not testing the mike at first, and not coming down swiftly to fix the problem. Then came the college anthem, which proved to be a deviant piece of music. I was originally upset because I thought my AVC made another mistake. I think the whole college was stifling laughter, but I had a straight face (according to my student) because I was seething with anger by then. I raged up to the AVC room, and scolded the whole lot after some interrogation, who utterly disappointed me in many respects, not counting the weird college anthem.
It turned out that a certain teacher had passed them the disc with the experimental anthem and asked them to play it (without informing me), and according to that teacher, she had written an announcement in the book about trying out the new anthem, but strangely enough, after I questioned many colleagues and students, she was the only one who had heard her announcement being made. Great. Now the whole school thinks the AVC screwed up when they hadn't.
I showed the roadshow slides to principal and she liked it, but wanted some minor changes. That was fine with me, of course. And then I heard the news that I would be marking the year 1 June Common Test instead of the year 2 because I have two TA3 (equivalent to JC1) classes, and the year 1 team was shorthanded. Shorthanded implies that there are more scripts to mark, but I have no problem about marking. The next piece of news is that I will be marking the year 1 SPA alongside my fellow TA3 tutor, albeit a smaller load. The only issue there is that I have already marked a full load of the year 2 batch of SPA, so this, in fact, is additional work. It is tough straddling these two levels, man. The next thing to come my way is that I am to help my principal prepare her college day powerpoint slides. Now I have no problem with doing that, because it doesn't take me much time to do the powerpoint part itself. But the bottleneck comes from the fact that I need to liaise with the photography club and sieve through, oh, just tens of thousands of photographs to find some useful ones to decorate the powerpoint. I have no issue if I'm needed to help do design-related stuff, because I think few people around are able to do it, but come on, at least spare me the menial mind-numbing parts. Am I too darn efficient or something? Cause it looks to me like nobody remembers that I'm preparing for a wedding, and renovating a new house. At this rate, I think I'll ask for permission to come to school everyday in a Superman t-shirt, because it fits me to a tee right now.
The only good thing to come out of today is the fact that my fiancee and I have selected our interior designer to do the renovation. His quotation is higher than any others I have had so far, but also contains the most things that we want and need. In any case, plus the electrical wiring, the renovation cost is going to hit a grand total of slightly more than $50k. Not counting appliances. Once again, I am entering the negative nett worth region with a big bank loan liability. I think I can start eating grass for the next few months. Moo.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Sat 5 May
Today is my decreed day of rest. After working so hard lately, I decided to totally slack for the day, which is marked by napping, anime, and playing Xbox with my fiancee who came by. Maybe I'm a closet workaholic, but something just doesn't feel right if I totally abandon work, not just in doing, but in rummaging through ideas regarding work-related stuff in my head even.
Sun 6 May
After service and cell group, a bunch of us hung around to wait for our respective girls. I think, in general, the girls' side have cell group about 50% longer than guys' side, which fits the statistical average that men only speak about 5000 words whereas women speak about 7000 to 8000 words. The recent channel 8 drama at 9 pm 幸福双人床 is quite funny. I think it neatly captures some common stories and caricartures about married life, and the script seems to have been written by someone who has the marriage counselling material at hand, because many things in there sounds exactly like what I heard in my marriage preparation course. That said, I think it's a brilliant idea to bring those marriage preparation course content to the masses, in an engaging way nonetheless. Although I wonder what the title would have changed to if the sponsor had been some other company.
While we were waiting for the girls, my cell leader, G12 brother Junhao and myself had quite a good talk, I believe. Now though, I am quite convinced that the power of empathy has limits, that one, no matter how much empathy he or she has, cannot understand beyond the scope of his or her own personal life experience. In that respect, for example, I can try to imagine, but will not ever be able to fully comprehend what my boys or my students go through, because it is a totally different world from mine. Of course, people always argue that you don't need to be a beauty queen to judge a beauty pageant contestant, or that you don't need to be an expert in a field to judge a competition for sure, or be a chef to criticize food, but it sure helps. And advice is one thing, because it can come from an unrelated third party who sees things differently from you but there is always something to gain from it, but empathy and seeing things through similar perspectives is another thing altogether. Now that makes me wonder how much of the things I say and advise actually feel relevant and useful to my boys and my students. Hmm...
After that, I headed down to Tampines with my fiancee to do some shopping. We had dinner at Crystal Jade first, and then went to walk around a bit. I didn't manage to find anything of interest, but my fiancee bought quite a bit of stuff. We really haven't been shopping much.
Mon 7 May
I got my keys today! Yay! I'm now the proud owner of a new house. Hmm, but in Singapore, you don't actually own a place, do you? In amendment, I'm now the proud leasee of a new house for 87 years before it gets enbloc-ed! There were so many documents to sign it was utterly scary. The whole process itself was quite painless though. I was scheduled for 9.10 am, but I was early at about 8.30 am. And it became my turn. Lesson learnt: being early is a rewarded virtue (sometimes).
The only problem is that I fell sick. I'm now down with bad throat infection, cough, and a splitting headache, a.k.a. fever. Although I had meant to return to school to conduct mock SPA, I was feeling so miserable that in the end, I went back straight to see a doctor. Man, of all the days, a major screw-up of the AVC happened on the day I took leave. The two people responsible for setting up the mikes and all for assembly were late for school, and in the end, assembly had to be cancelled. Not that my being there would help anything, I guess, but it doesn't feel good to have something so major happen 'behind my back'. Anyway, my fiancee is so sweet to keep me company the whole day; I'm sure that would aid my recovery. Heh.
Today is my decreed day of rest. After working so hard lately, I decided to totally slack for the day, which is marked by napping, anime, and playing Xbox with my fiancee who came by. Maybe I'm a closet workaholic, but something just doesn't feel right if I totally abandon work, not just in doing, but in rummaging through ideas regarding work-related stuff in my head even.
Sun 6 May
After service and cell group, a bunch of us hung around to wait for our respective girls. I think, in general, the girls' side have cell group about 50% longer than guys' side, which fits the statistical average that men only speak about 5000 words whereas women speak about 7000 to 8000 words. The recent channel 8 drama at 9 pm 幸福双人床 is quite funny. I think it neatly captures some common stories and caricartures about married life, and the script seems to have been written by someone who has the marriage counselling material at hand, because many things in there sounds exactly like what I heard in my marriage preparation course. That said, I think it's a brilliant idea to bring those marriage preparation course content to the masses, in an engaging way nonetheless. Although I wonder what the title would have changed to if the sponsor had been some other company.
While we were waiting for the girls, my cell leader, G12 brother Junhao and myself had quite a good talk, I believe. Now though, I am quite convinced that the power of empathy has limits, that one, no matter how much empathy he or she has, cannot understand beyond the scope of his or her own personal life experience. In that respect, for example, I can try to imagine, but will not ever be able to fully comprehend what my boys or my students go through, because it is a totally different world from mine. Of course, people always argue that you don't need to be a beauty queen to judge a beauty pageant contestant, or that you don't need to be an expert in a field to judge a competition for sure, or be a chef to criticize food, but it sure helps. And advice is one thing, because it can come from an unrelated third party who sees things differently from you but there is always something to gain from it, but empathy and seeing things through similar perspectives is another thing altogether. Now that makes me wonder how much of the things I say and advise actually feel relevant and useful to my boys and my students. Hmm...
After that, I headed down to Tampines with my fiancee to do some shopping. We had dinner at Crystal Jade first, and then went to walk around a bit. I didn't manage to find anything of interest, but my fiancee bought quite a bit of stuff. We really haven't been shopping much.
Mon 7 May
I got my keys today! Yay! I'm now the proud owner of a new house. Hmm, but in Singapore, you don't actually own a place, do you? In amendment, I'm now the proud leasee of a new house for 87 years before it gets enbloc-ed! There were so many documents to sign it was utterly scary. The whole process itself was quite painless though. I was scheduled for 9.10 am, but I was early at about 8.30 am. And it became my turn. Lesson learnt: being early is a rewarded virtue (sometimes).
The only problem is that I fell sick. I'm now down with bad throat infection, cough, and a splitting headache, a.k.a. fever. Although I had meant to return to school to conduct mock SPA, I was feeling so miserable that in the end, I went back straight to see a doctor. Man, of all the days, a major screw-up of the AVC happened on the day I took leave. The two people responsible for setting up the mikes and all for assembly were late for school, and in the end, assembly had to be cancelled. Not that my being there would help anything, I guess, but it doesn't feel good to have something so major happen 'behind my back'. Anyway, my fiancee is so sweet to keep me company the whole day; I'm sure that would aid my recovery. Heh.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Wed 2 May
After a good one-day break, it was back to school again. It poured in the morning, and I really hate rain when I am going to work. Not because of the rain itself, but rather the fact that when it rains, I have difficulty getting a cab. Everytime it rains, I notice it is always the same two persons (at least) cutting my queue. More people take cabs instead of buses too, and today was no exception. In the end, I got a cab very late, and ended up at school very late. Not to mention that today was my turn to pay for the cab, and since I boarded the cab late, I incurred the peak hour $2 surcharge. Not a good way to start the day.
I waited for my fiancee to finish her PDP commitments, and we headed down to Balestier Road to meet the interior designer I met the previous Sunday at the Lifestyle show. Although I am more inclined to engage the recent designer, I thought it would be only fair to listen to her proposition. What she came up with was about $42000, not counting some carpentry that we wanted, rewiring of the whole house, and she wanted to use laminate overlay for the living room instead of changing to new tiles. Sigh. The sad thing is that her individual breakdown of pricing per item seems fair, and I think it looks like it will cost that much to do up the place. The scary thing is that the work is just simple stuff, and nothing extravagant or fanciful. I really hope that the other designer can give a much better quote. Although some amount of debt is financially manageable, of course I would want it to be as small a sum as possible.
Thu 3 May
Today was the usual long day, crammed with lessons and work. Using those few free periods I had, I managed to complete the roadshow powerpoint. Now the only thing left to do is to show it to the principal and see if she wants any changes. If not, then this job is a done deal. After school, I headed down to my fiancee's place to help her set up a router so that she and her sister can share the connection should she bring her laptop home to work. We detoured to KFC to grab a bite, and the new Meltz thing from KFC tastes great! The dough part of it is done nicely, with just enough of that slightly charred taste. The filling tasted good with the thousand island sauce (I'm guessing).
In the evening, we headed down to Bukit Merah. My pastor invited me to a sharing session about the latest programmes run by Touch Youth Limited, because I am a key volunteer under him, and I brought my fiancee along because she is a teacher counsellor, and in the sharing session, there was a segment on counselling gaming addicts. Not that we have seen such cases in our school at the moment, but I figured it doesn't hurt to learn more. When I went home and was sorting out my computer files and folders, I unearthed some documents that I had forgotten about. The gaming module that my pastor uses to teach in his courses and roadshows to secondary schools (usually) had a portion done by me. I completely forgot that I worked freelance for him to churn out the content, and as I read through what I wrote about the motivation behind gaming, addiction, rehabilitation, and an overview of the games out there in the market, I was shocked that even then when I was still in NIE, I was capable of writing a paper (of sorts) hitting 10000 words. No wonder I had little difficulty churning out the 4000 and 5000 word research proposal and literature review recently for my masters' course assignments.
Fri 4 May
I managed to find some time to relax a little bit, now that I had completed the roadshow slides at last. Inbetween my lessons, I settled some administrative work, had remedial, and fired off some emails. It was yet another of those timely reminders I had to send out so that the relevant teachers can inform the relevant students not to take my AVC for granted and inform us early should they require any assistance. After school, two colleagues, my fiancee and I went down to Blk 85 hawker centre to eat bak chor mee. We also ordered fried hokkien mee, oyster omelette and barbecued sambal stingray. To top it all off, my fiancee and I bought some Ah Balling glutinous rice balls for dessert. This was one massive dinner. I hope the weather tomorrow would be temperate, and not beastly hot or rainy so that I can go for a long overdue jog.
After a good one-day break, it was back to school again. It poured in the morning, and I really hate rain when I am going to work. Not because of the rain itself, but rather the fact that when it rains, I have difficulty getting a cab. Everytime it rains, I notice it is always the same two persons (at least) cutting my queue. More people take cabs instead of buses too, and today was no exception. In the end, I got a cab very late, and ended up at school very late. Not to mention that today was my turn to pay for the cab, and since I boarded the cab late, I incurred the peak hour $2 surcharge. Not a good way to start the day.
I waited for my fiancee to finish her PDP commitments, and we headed down to Balestier Road to meet the interior designer I met the previous Sunday at the Lifestyle show. Although I am more inclined to engage the recent designer, I thought it would be only fair to listen to her proposition. What she came up with was about $42000, not counting some carpentry that we wanted, rewiring of the whole house, and she wanted to use laminate overlay for the living room instead of changing to new tiles. Sigh. The sad thing is that her individual breakdown of pricing per item seems fair, and I think it looks like it will cost that much to do up the place. The scary thing is that the work is just simple stuff, and nothing extravagant or fanciful. I really hope that the other designer can give a much better quote. Although some amount of debt is financially manageable, of course I would want it to be as small a sum as possible.
Thu 3 May
Today was the usual long day, crammed with lessons and work. Using those few free periods I had, I managed to complete the roadshow powerpoint. Now the only thing left to do is to show it to the principal and see if she wants any changes. If not, then this job is a done deal. After school, I headed down to my fiancee's place to help her set up a router so that she and her sister can share the connection should she bring her laptop home to work. We detoured to KFC to grab a bite, and the new Meltz thing from KFC tastes great! The dough part of it is done nicely, with just enough of that slightly charred taste. The filling tasted good with the thousand island sauce (I'm guessing).
In the evening, we headed down to Bukit Merah. My pastor invited me to a sharing session about the latest programmes run by Touch Youth Limited, because I am a key volunteer under him, and I brought my fiancee along because she is a teacher counsellor, and in the sharing session, there was a segment on counselling gaming addicts. Not that we have seen such cases in our school at the moment, but I figured it doesn't hurt to learn more. When I went home and was sorting out my computer files and folders, I unearthed some documents that I had forgotten about. The gaming module that my pastor uses to teach in his courses and roadshows to secondary schools (usually) had a portion done by me. I completely forgot that I worked freelance for him to churn out the content, and as I read through what I wrote about the motivation behind gaming, addiction, rehabilitation, and an overview of the games out there in the market, I was shocked that even then when I was still in NIE, I was capable of writing a paper (of sorts) hitting 10000 words. No wonder I had little difficulty churning out the 4000 and 5000 word research proposal and literature review recently for my masters' course assignments.
Fri 4 May
I managed to find some time to relax a little bit, now that I had completed the roadshow slides at last. Inbetween my lessons, I settled some administrative work, had remedial, and fired off some emails. It was yet another of those timely reminders I had to send out so that the relevant teachers can inform the relevant students not to take my AVC for granted and inform us early should they require any assistance. After school, two colleagues, my fiancee and I went down to Blk 85 hawker centre to eat bak chor mee. We also ordered fried hokkien mee, oyster omelette and barbecued sambal stingray. To top it all off, my fiancee and I bought some Ah Balling glutinous rice balls for dessert. This was one massive dinner. I hope the weather tomorrow would be temperate, and not beastly hot or rainy so that I can go for a long overdue jog.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Mon 30 Apr
Today was a relatively short day because it was the Track and Field meet. I couldn't join my colleagues to go down to Old Airport Road to eat lor mee because I had to go ensure that the AV system was properly set up. Anyway, I was quite impressed with some of my students who were cheerleading, or running in the events. The whole event went rather smoothly, but I had to go off in the middle to meet the parents of one of my students. The father actually emailed me yesterday late afternoon (now why would I be checking my school email on a Sunday?) to arrange to meet me on Monday (which he didn't indicate to be today actually) morning. He himself couldn't make it eventually, but decided to come later in the afternoon, hence the meeting. I was glad to see that the parents were so concerned about their son. My concern for him is not in the academics, but rather in his attitude towards life in general. Purposelessness is a more debilitating disease than lazyness on its own. Anyway, after talking to them for half an hour and understanding what was going on in the family, I headed back to the Sports Complex, catching some random students who tried to sneak off. I think I was more pissed at their lame excuses than the fact that they were fleeing. They could tell me that they were going to the toilet or going to the canteen to buy drinks. Come on, do they think that I was born yesterday? The Sports Complex has vending machines and toilets, and you do not need to carry your entire bag and whatever belongings to go buy a drink or take a piss do you? In any case, Sports Day is one of the few days in the year when you can actually hear the students sing the college anthem. Isn't that great?
After the event ended, eight of us colleagues headed down to Kbox at Parkway Parade to have dinner and sing karaoke together. Anyway, I couldn't believe the extent of inflation. The package includes a buffet dinner at Sakura restaurant, and 3 hours of singing, and it used to be priced at $26 nett. Now it is a whopping $33.80! A $7.80 increase, which is about 35% inflation? Recently, I was dismayed to see the price of HL milk go up as well, so I think now I'll stick to Magnolia instead. After all, Magnolia is 100% fresh milk, whereas HL and some others, are just 'made with fresh milk'. It's a world of difference, so check the labels properly by the way. I have been buying HL milk only because it had been cheap. Honestly, I think ever since the announcement of increase in ministerial pay, I've seen prices go up in many places. I think businessmen must likewise think that their income is not enough. Anyway, the session was loads of fun. The company was excellent, I must say. Very spontaneous, whacky and wild.
Tue 1 May
It's a public holiday, and man, am I glad for the rest I'm getting from work. Not that I dislike the work, but just that I am in need of some rest and relaxation. I had cell group in the early morning, and then headed down to Bugis Junction to meet my fiancee. We did some shopping, and I ended up with two pairs of pants, and two long-sleeved shirts. Hopefully the weather these days will become cooler so that I can comfortably don my new purchases. For lunch, we headed to Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant in Bugis Junction. Now, considering that the restaurant's name itself includes 'steamed bun', I would have thought the xiao long bao would be excellent, but it turned out to have too little 'soup' inside it, and the flavour was not rich enough. We also had drunken chicken, but the meat was a little too tough, although the portion was quite big. I had abalone mushroom noodles, and the mushrooms tasted wonderful, but the noodles were bland, and so was the soup. In fact, the soup base reminded me somehow of Myojo's instant chicken noodles for some inexplicable reason.
After lunch and shopping, we headed to the cinema to watch Spiderman 3. The CGI was excellent as usual, and the aerial battles between the new Green Goblin and Spiderman, as well as against the Sandman, were extremely well shot and well rendered. The Sandman was pretty cool, but something similar had been used in the Mummy. The action scenes were intense, but interspersed throughout the whole 2 hr and 20 min of the movie, and there were many slow and sentimental scenes inbetween. Nothing wrong with those scenes in themselves, but I thought they broke up the pace too much. Venom was super cool as well, but I think the movie grossly brought down his power, and made him relatively simple to defeat. That to me was disappointing.
I think the prevalent theme in this movie is the idea of vengeance and forgiveness. There were the Green Goblin, Venom (Eddie Brock inside), and even Spiderman, who were taken by vengeance, and eventually the main thrust of the movie was about the forgiveness between friends and even foe. Although the idea there was strong, but I wonder (spoiler ahead, be forewarned) if the forgiveness shown by Spiderman towards the Sandman at the end was undermined in terms of weight by the fact that the Sandman explained that he had killed Parker's uncle accidentally. Suppose he did deliberately shoot the uncle, and asked for forgiveness, would Spiderman still be able to say, "I forgive you?" Food for thought there.
My fiancee came over to my place for dinner. When we got to the main road to get a cab for her to get home, we saw a few Thai workers waiting for a cab. I asked the man to confirm, and since he said he was waiting for one, we crossed over to the other side of the main road to wait so that we didn't cut their queue. The same etiquette was not shown us though when three people popped out of nowhere and intercepted our cab. They saw us actually, and looked over at us several times, but went ahead anyway. I think the Thai guy I initially asked was really unfortunate. He waited a long time, and eventually decided to leave for greener pastures. In less than half a minute, there was an onslaught of empty taxis that came.
Today was a relatively short day because it was the Track and Field meet. I couldn't join my colleagues to go down to Old Airport Road to eat lor mee because I had to go ensure that the AV system was properly set up. Anyway, I was quite impressed with some of my students who were cheerleading, or running in the events. The whole event went rather smoothly, but I had to go off in the middle to meet the parents of one of my students. The father actually emailed me yesterday late afternoon (now why would I be checking my school email on a Sunday?) to arrange to meet me on Monday (which he didn't indicate to be today actually) morning. He himself couldn't make it eventually, but decided to come later in the afternoon, hence the meeting. I was glad to see that the parents were so concerned about their son. My concern for him is not in the academics, but rather in his attitude towards life in general. Purposelessness is a more debilitating disease than lazyness on its own. Anyway, after talking to them for half an hour and understanding what was going on in the family, I headed back to the Sports Complex, catching some random students who tried to sneak off. I think I was more pissed at their lame excuses than the fact that they were fleeing. They could tell me that they were going to the toilet or going to the canteen to buy drinks. Come on, do they think that I was born yesterday? The Sports Complex has vending machines and toilets, and you do not need to carry your entire bag and whatever belongings to go buy a drink or take a piss do you? In any case, Sports Day is one of the few days in the year when you can actually hear the students sing the college anthem. Isn't that great?
After the event ended, eight of us colleagues headed down to Kbox at Parkway Parade to have dinner and sing karaoke together. Anyway, I couldn't believe the extent of inflation. The package includes a buffet dinner at Sakura restaurant, and 3 hours of singing, and it used to be priced at $26 nett. Now it is a whopping $33.80! A $7.80 increase, which is about 35% inflation? Recently, I was dismayed to see the price of HL milk go up as well, so I think now I'll stick to Magnolia instead. After all, Magnolia is 100% fresh milk, whereas HL and some others, are just 'made with fresh milk'. It's a world of difference, so check the labels properly by the way. I have been buying HL milk only because it had been cheap. Honestly, I think ever since the announcement of increase in ministerial pay, I've seen prices go up in many places. I think businessmen must likewise think that their income is not enough. Anyway, the session was loads of fun. The company was excellent, I must say. Very spontaneous, whacky and wild.
Tue 1 May
It's a public holiday, and man, am I glad for the rest I'm getting from work. Not that I dislike the work, but just that I am in need of some rest and relaxation. I had cell group in the early morning, and then headed down to Bugis Junction to meet my fiancee. We did some shopping, and I ended up with two pairs of pants, and two long-sleeved shirts. Hopefully the weather these days will become cooler so that I can comfortably don my new purchases. For lunch, we headed to Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant in Bugis Junction. Now, considering that the restaurant's name itself includes 'steamed bun', I would have thought the xiao long bao would be excellent, but it turned out to have too little 'soup' inside it, and the flavour was not rich enough. We also had drunken chicken, but the meat was a little too tough, although the portion was quite big. I had abalone mushroom noodles, and the mushrooms tasted wonderful, but the noodles were bland, and so was the soup. In fact, the soup base reminded me somehow of Myojo's instant chicken noodles for some inexplicable reason.
After lunch and shopping, we headed to the cinema to watch Spiderman 3. The CGI was excellent as usual, and the aerial battles between the new Green Goblin and Spiderman, as well as against the Sandman, were extremely well shot and well rendered. The Sandman was pretty cool, but something similar had been used in the Mummy. The action scenes were intense, but interspersed throughout the whole 2 hr and 20 min of the movie, and there were many slow and sentimental scenes inbetween. Nothing wrong with those scenes in themselves, but I thought they broke up the pace too much. Venom was super cool as well, but I think the movie grossly brought down his power, and made him relatively simple to defeat. That to me was disappointing.
I think the prevalent theme in this movie is the idea of vengeance and forgiveness. There were the Green Goblin, Venom (Eddie Brock inside), and even Spiderman, who were taken by vengeance, and eventually the main thrust of the movie was about the forgiveness between friends and even foe. Although the idea there was strong, but I wonder (spoiler ahead, be forewarned) if the forgiveness shown by Spiderman towards the Sandman at the end was undermined in terms of weight by the fact that the Sandman explained that he had killed Parker's uncle accidentally. Suppose he did deliberately shoot the uncle, and asked for forgiveness, would Spiderman still be able to say, "I forgive you?" Food for thought there.
My fiancee came over to my place for dinner. When we got to the main road to get a cab for her to get home, we saw a few Thai workers waiting for a cab. I asked the man to confirm, and since he said he was waiting for one, we crossed over to the other side of the main road to wait so that we didn't cut their queue. The same etiquette was not shown us though when three people popped out of nowhere and intercepted our cab. They saw us actually, and looked over at us several times, but went ahead anyway. I think the Thai guy I initially asked was really unfortunate. He waited a long time, and eventually decided to leave for greener pastures. In less than half a minute, there was an onslaught of empty taxis that came.
