Sunday, September 30, 2007
Mon 24 Sep
My fiancee and I took a ME day off so that we can stay and settle wedding matters. Our school has an off day for staff to take for their birthdays, but recognizing that it is quite hard for a teacher to just take off, the college leaders allowed the day off to be any day of the year as long as it is convenient. We happened to have no lesson for today because it was the study break period for the non-JC2 batch, and I didn't have Monday lessons with my JC2 class. In the afternoon, I went over to my fiancee's place to rest a while and then go cut my hair at Hair De Vogue. The hairdresser is really good. I know he has won awards and all, but for him to cut my hair till army requirement (which is the 4 by 2 slope), and still make it look pretty good, I think it surely must be expertise. Sian...next week in-camp training liao. I haven't run in, oh, maybe 8 months; I wonder how I will pass my IPPT test...
Tue 25 Sep
Today has got to be the weirdest and slackest schoolday I have had in this whole year. I went out to eat breakfast with my colleague, ZH. During the breakfast, we chatted about many things, and found that we both had no lessons the whole day. Then we messaged another colleague, HY, who took a ME day off today, and it turned out that he was free the whole day because his wife was at work. We then rushed back to school, did some quick work, and we left before lunch time, heading to ZH's house for 3-person mahjong on a whim.
At half time by lunch time, HY was the big winner, so he treated us to MacDonald's delivery. At that point, I was still positive in terms of winnings, and ZH lost to both of us. When we headed back to the mahjong table, ZH became the comeback king, and kept on winning, and I became the sole loser of the day. I like playing with them because although they are serious players, they are really good and I have been learning from them. Other than that, they also talk a lot, so it's not those quiet, boring, and tense sessions. I also didn't mind losing that day because almost everything came out. Although we were playing with joker tiles, it's still not everyday you see 天(平)湖,地湖,十三幺,小四喜,大三元 (3 times), 字一色,坎坎湖.
Wed 26 Sep
I hung around in school and did some work and adminstrative tasks in advance in view of my coming reservist, and also to wait for my fiancee who was still marking frantically away. We had dinner at Segar restaurant at Bedok interchange, which has pretty good food, and slowly made my way to cell group. Apparently, I still got there early by 15 minutes, and I waited for around twenty minutes before the next person arrived, and by the time cell group started, it was almost a good 45 minutes after I reached. No wonder my G12 brother commented that it was quite pointless to be early, which to me, is a pretty sad conclusion.
Thu 27 Sep
I had a relatively short day, but I slogged like mad to finish the last of the 5000-word literature review for my Masters' course. I wanted to finish it while I was still lucidly clear about what to write, so that I would not be dead stressed when I come out from reservist on the 12th, panicking about deadlines and the wedding. I managed to shop a little in the evening, and bought two new belts. I realized that my belts were pretty functional so far. One for work, and one for leisure, and nothing else. I think when I have the chance, I will slowly stock up more designs. I already have enough clothes, and quite a number of pairs of shoes. Now the finishing touches would be belts, and watches. Bwahaha. Actually I have quite a few watches already, but they are out of battery and I couldn't find the time to go get them replaced.
Fri 28 Sep
My day ended up shockingly long. I met a couple of my students to talk about their future career and university choices. I had a tutorial, followed by a lecture, and then a meeting. After lunch, I had another consultation, before I rushed back to office to tie up whatever loose ends imaginable so that nothing will screw up (hopefully) while I am away. In the evening, my fiancee and I headed to White Sands to do a little shopping, and ended up at Lerk Thai again. The chef today seemed different, but the meal was still sumptuous.
Sat 29 Sep
I woke up early to go to Suntec City for the Prerelease tournament for my undying hobby Magic the Gathering. Now that I have found a colleague, HY, who is interested (and one of my students, actually), I had been going to the recent few ones as well. I won two rounds, drew one round, and lost one round. It wasn't a good score, but given that I had a pretty weak deck, I can only say that I won those two rounds only because the two players who played against me were amateurs. Oh well. My fiancee came down to join us for lunch at the new Food Republic at the Convention Centre. I must say, the place has been done up so nicely that I couldn't quite recognize it. The food there, considering that it is essentially a food court, since pretty good. The price is of course a bit more steep than usual coffee shop fare.
After lunch, we went to check out the Muji sale at one of the convention rooms. I bought two shirts and a pair of pants from there. I had never imagined buying anything from Muji other than cool looking stationery, because the prices seem really high for something that looks pretty ordinary. However, considering that now the prices were affordable, I was able to notice something that I would otherwise not have - the cloth that is used is good stuff. When we were done shopping there, we headed to Carrefour to spend the last of the vouchers given to us during housewarming, and we bought a couple of fans, and some odds and ends, and we made it home in time to watch 清宫风云. It is fascinatingly good, considering it is a historical period drama of the Qing dynasty, but the show is ending soon. After my wedding, if I end up being less busy than I am hoping for, I may go buy the series if I can find it.
Sun 30 Sep
I went to service as usual, which was one looooong sermon, and had cell group after that. I went over to my fiancee's house for dinner, before staying for the show 清宫风云. Sigh. Tomorrow I'll be going in camp for reservist training. The ironic thing is that I think I actually may be able to blog more often from within the camp than currently. Ah well. Most of the time I don't dread reservist training, but this time round, with it being so near my wedding date, I can't help but feel irritated that it is at this time of the year.
My fiancee and I took a ME day off so that we can stay and settle wedding matters. Our school has an off day for staff to take for their birthdays, but recognizing that it is quite hard for a teacher to just take off, the college leaders allowed the day off to be any day of the year as long as it is convenient. We happened to have no lesson for today because it was the study break period for the non-JC2 batch, and I didn't have Monday lessons with my JC2 class. In the afternoon, I went over to my fiancee's place to rest a while and then go cut my hair at Hair De Vogue. The hairdresser is really good. I know he has won awards and all, but for him to cut my hair till army requirement (which is the 4 by 2 slope), and still make it look pretty good, I think it surely must be expertise. Sian...next week in-camp training liao. I haven't run in, oh, maybe 8 months; I wonder how I will pass my IPPT test...
Tue 25 Sep
Today has got to be the weirdest and slackest schoolday I have had in this whole year. I went out to eat breakfast with my colleague, ZH. During the breakfast, we chatted about many things, and found that we both had no lessons the whole day. Then we messaged another colleague, HY, who took a ME day off today, and it turned out that he was free the whole day because his wife was at work. We then rushed back to school, did some quick work, and we left before lunch time, heading to ZH's house for 3-person mahjong on a whim.
At half time by lunch time, HY was the big winner, so he treated us to MacDonald's delivery. At that point, I was still positive in terms of winnings, and ZH lost to both of us. When we headed back to the mahjong table, ZH became the comeback king, and kept on winning, and I became the sole loser of the day. I like playing with them because although they are serious players, they are really good and I have been learning from them. Other than that, they also talk a lot, so it's not those quiet, boring, and tense sessions. I also didn't mind losing that day because almost everything came out. Although we were playing with joker tiles, it's still not everyday you see 天(平)湖,地湖,十三幺,小四喜,大三元 (3 times), 字一色,坎坎湖.
Wed 26 Sep
I hung around in school and did some work and adminstrative tasks in advance in view of my coming reservist, and also to wait for my fiancee who was still marking frantically away. We had dinner at Segar restaurant at Bedok interchange, which has pretty good food, and slowly made my way to cell group. Apparently, I still got there early by 15 minutes, and I waited for around twenty minutes before the next person arrived, and by the time cell group started, it was almost a good 45 minutes after I reached. No wonder my G12 brother commented that it was quite pointless to be early, which to me, is a pretty sad conclusion.
Thu 27 Sep
I had a relatively short day, but I slogged like mad to finish the last of the 5000-word literature review for my Masters' course. I wanted to finish it while I was still lucidly clear about what to write, so that I would not be dead stressed when I come out from reservist on the 12th, panicking about deadlines and the wedding. I managed to shop a little in the evening, and bought two new belts. I realized that my belts were pretty functional so far. One for work, and one for leisure, and nothing else. I think when I have the chance, I will slowly stock up more designs. I already have enough clothes, and quite a number of pairs of shoes. Now the finishing touches would be belts, and watches. Bwahaha. Actually I have quite a few watches already, but they are out of battery and I couldn't find the time to go get them replaced.
Fri 28 Sep
My day ended up shockingly long. I met a couple of my students to talk about their future career and university choices. I had a tutorial, followed by a lecture, and then a meeting. After lunch, I had another consultation, before I rushed back to office to tie up whatever loose ends imaginable so that nothing will screw up (hopefully) while I am away. In the evening, my fiancee and I headed to White Sands to do a little shopping, and ended up at Lerk Thai again. The chef today seemed different, but the meal was still sumptuous.
Sat 29 Sep
I woke up early to go to Suntec City for the Prerelease tournament for my undying hobby Magic the Gathering. Now that I have found a colleague, HY, who is interested (and one of my students, actually), I had been going to the recent few ones as well. I won two rounds, drew one round, and lost one round. It wasn't a good score, but given that I had a pretty weak deck, I can only say that I won those two rounds only because the two players who played against me were amateurs. Oh well. My fiancee came down to join us for lunch at the new Food Republic at the Convention Centre. I must say, the place has been done up so nicely that I couldn't quite recognize it. The food there, considering that it is essentially a food court, since pretty good. The price is of course a bit more steep than usual coffee shop fare.
After lunch, we went to check out the Muji sale at one of the convention rooms. I bought two shirts and a pair of pants from there. I had never imagined buying anything from Muji other than cool looking stationery, because the prices seem really high for something that looks pretty ordinary. However, considering that now the prices were affordable, I was able to notice something that I would otherwise not have - the cloth that is used is good stuff. When we were done shopping there, we headed to Carrefour to spend the last of the vouchers given to us during housewarming, and we bought a couple of fans, and some odds and ends, and we made it home in time to watch 清宫风云. It is fascinatingly good, considering it is a historical period drama of the Qing dynasty, but the show is ending soon. After my wedding, if I end up being less busy than I am hoping for, I may go buy the series if I can find it.
Sun 30 Sep
I went to service as usual, which was one looooong sermon, and had cell group after that. I went over to my fiancee's house for dinner, before staying for the show 清宫风云. Sigh. Tomorrow I'll be going in camp for reservist training. The ironic thing is that I think I actually may be able to blog more often from within the camp than currently. Ah well. Most of the time I don't dread reservist training, but this time round, with it being so near my wedding date, I can't help but feel irritated that it is at this time of the year.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Tue 18 Sep
Today the structured section came in, and that began the madness of marking. I managed to clear about ten classes by about 3.30 pm. I was supposed to go visit a colleague who had injured her leg badly with some other colleagues, but HDB finally got back to me, and the person said that he was free to come down to check on the windows that afternoon. So I had to change my plans and head home as soon as I could.
That proved a waste of effort, because the eventual conclusion was that HDB did not have any program to fix windows. Great. They installed the windows, and now that there is a problem, they will not give any solutions? I mean, even if they aren't going to do it for free, at least they could direct me to the contractor who actually did the windows right?
Wed 19 Sep
I marked like mad in the morning, and finished by slightly after lunchtime, which was once again, record breakingly fast. There was a staff conference as usual, which turned into a department meeting where our HOD told us new developments on SPA, which was supposed to be an improvement apparently. After that, I headed over to my fiancee's place for dinner, before heading all the way down to Bukit Merah for cell group. I actually slept almost the whole way to Bukit Merah, and the whole way on the train back to Pasir Ris. I think lately my busyness has been taking its toll on me. Seldom do I feel so perpetually exhausted.
Thu 20 Sep
Today was quite a long day. I still had four periods of lessons with my TA3 classes. One of them was ahead by one period, so I introduced them to my card game. They took to it so well they refused to go for break till they finished their game. Unlike my JC2 class which had some students who liked the game, my TA3 class seemed to like it more unanimously. I derive great satisfaction watching them enjoy themselves actually. After school, I had remedial with my students, which was followed by consultations. One of my remedial students had borrowed the cards from me to play and returned it. Among the students waiting to ask me questions was one student who had played the game in the morning, and she enthusiastically offered to teach the students from my other class how to play the game, and they challenged me as well. I knew at that moment I had devised a really good educational tool and that my time spent on it was not a waste.
I left school at 6 plus finally, and dropped by to visit my interior designer to consult him on the leaking window issue, which HDB conveniently pushed responsibility away for. He passed me a new set of cutlery, which was a free gift with Mayer's oven, and he was saying that he was about to drive down to my place and leave it by the door if no one was at home. This was a case of perfect timing. Heh.
Fri 21 Sep
What a horribly long day today was. There was a training session for Project Work oral presentation assistants (which I kenna) at 8.30 am, and interestingly enough, fourteen of the chemistry teachers made an exodus to the hawker centre opposite for a heavy breakfast. The training session lasted till 10 am, which immediately followed into a SPA standardization meeting. That took right up to roughly 12 pm, and I went out for a quick lunch, and came back to school for consultation with some TA3 students. After that was over, my fiancee, colleague and I headed down to MJC for our Masters' tutorial. The lesson today was quite interesting, because the lecturer was talking about Play and Learn, so he showed us a great number of educational toys, some of which were quite fun. Some of the beliefs he espoused I totally agreed with, which is why I would work so hard on my card game.
I went straight to Hei Sushi to buy takeaway sushi and sashimi, and headed home to wait for shups! and gang. A friend who has been working in Tokyo happened to be in town, so I invited her to come as well. It was more like a mini-reunion because I think they themselves haven't met in a while apparently. Steph and her boyfriend stayed a while longer to play mahjong with us, and ended at around 1 plus am, but at least her boyfriend drove. Alright, one more housewarming, and we are done for quite a while. Maybe there will be one more for the colleagues who couldn't make it the other time.
Sat 22 Sep
Yes, the final housewarming for a long time to come. Today was my fiancee's relatives' turn. We headed out after doing a lot of chores first to buy drinks and snacks for everyone. Surprisingly, they were almost all early, so my poor mum had to entertain them on our behalf first. We headed back as soon as possible, and then began the madness. My fiancee has two cousins, one boy and one girl, and they were like bulls in a china shop. Minus the china thankfully. They were super energetic, and ran all over the place. When they sat down, they jumped onto the couch. Stuff like that kept us following them all over whenever they ran up the stairs and all. I was so worried that they were fall down the stairs or something.
Eventually I distracted them with my Xbox 360, which occupied them for really long till they left. The wonders of technology...
Sun 23 Sep
I had service and cell group today, and finally, the core four boys were all back today. After cell group, I hung around to help my fiancee's sister and friend with maths and biology respectively. I still can remember almost everything! Hehe.
My fiancee and I headed off for dinner, and we decided to head back to White Sands. We found ourselves at Lerk Thai because we decided to give it a try. The food was surprisingly good. I had pineapple rice (for $2 with $10+ order...cheap), soup with beancurd, seafood and mushrooms, and my fiancee had Thai beef kway teow. We ordered red ruby, and tapioca with coconut cream for dessert. They were all good. The pineapple rice was fragrant and tasty. The soup was delicious, and had a good portion of everything inside, and the beancurd was so smooth and soft it almost melts in the mouth. The beef in the kway teow was very tender, and the noodles were smooth as well. The red ruby had just enough softness and crunch in the water chestnut. We are definitely going back again. I wonder if it's just this outlet that's good. Hmm...
Today the structured section came in, and that began the madness of marking. I managed to clear about ten classes by about 3.30 pm. I was supposed to go visit a colleague who had injured her leg badly with some other colleagues, but HDB finally got back to me, and the person said that he was free to come down to check on the windows that afternoon. So I had to change my plans and head home as soon as I could.
That proved a waste of effort, because the eventual conclusion was that HDB did not have any program to fix windows. Great. They installed the windows, and now that there is a problem, they will not give any solutions? I mean, even if they aren't going to do it for free, at least they could direct me to the contractor who actually did the windows right?
Wed 19 Sep
I marked like mad in the morning, and finished by slightly after lunchtime, which was once again, record breakingly fast. There was a staff conference as usual, which turned into a department meeting where our HOD told us new developments on SPA, which was supposed to be an improvement apparently. After that, I headed over to my fiancee's place for dinner, before heading all the way down to Bukit Merah for cell group. I actually slept almost the whole way to Bukit Merah, and the whole way on the train back to Pasir Ris. I think lately my busyness has been taking its toll on me. Seldom do I feel so perpetually exhausted.
Thu 20 Sep
Today was quite a long day. I still had four periods of lessons with my TA3 classes. One of them was ahead by one period, so I introduced them to my card game. They took to it so well they refused to go for break till they finished their game. Unlike my JC2 class which had some students who liked the game, my TA3 class seemed to like it more unanimously. I derive great satisfaction watching them enjoy themselves actually. After school, I had remedial with my students, which was followed by consultations. One of my remedial students had borrowed the cards from me to play and returned it. Among the students waiting to ask me questions was one student who had played the game in the morning, and she enthusiastically offered to teach the students from my other class how to play the game, and they challenged me as well. I knew at that moment I had devised a really good educational tool and that my time spent on it was not a waste.
I left school at 6 plus finally, and dropped by to visit my interior designer to consult him on the leaking window issue, which HDB conveniently pushed responsibility away for. He passed me a new set of cutlery, which was a free gift with Mayer's oven, and he was saying that he was about to drive down to my place and leave it by the door if no one was at home. This was a case of perfect timing. Heh.
Fri 21 Sep
What a horribly long day today was. There was a training session for Project Work oral presentation assistants (which I kenna) at 8.30 am, and interestingly enough, fourteen of the chemistry teachers made an exodus to the hawker centre opposite for a heavy breakfast. The training session lasted till 10 am, which immediately followed into a SPA standardization meeting. That took right up to roughly 12 pm, and I went out for a quick lunch, and came back to school for consultation with some TA3 students. After that was over, my fiancee, colleague and I headed down to MJC for our Masters' tutorial. The lesson today was quite interesting, because the lecturer was talking about Play and Learn, so he showed us a great number of educational toys, some of which were quite fun. Some of the beliefs he espoused I totally agreed with, which is why I would work so hard on my card game.
I went straight to Hei Sushi to buy takeaway sushi and sashimi, and headed home to wait for shups! and gang. A friend who has been working in Tokyo happened to be in town, so I invited her to come as well. It was more like a mini-reunion because I think they themselves haven't met in a while apparently. Steph and her boyfriend stayed a while longer to play mahjong with us, and ended at around 1 plus am, but at least her boyfriend drove. Alright, one more housewarming, and we are done for quite a while. Maybe there will be one more for the colleagues who couldn't make it the other time.
Sat 22 Sep
Yes, the final housewarming for a long time to come. Today was my fiancee's relatives' turn. We headed out after doing a lot of chores first to buy drinks and snacks for everyone. Surprisingly, they were almost all early, so my poor mum had to entertain them on our behalf first. We headed back as soon as possible, and then began the madness. My fiancee has two cousins, one boy and one girl, and they were like bulls in a china shop. Minus the china thankfully. They were super energetic, and ran all over the place. When they sat down, they jumped onto the couch. Stuff like that kept us following them all over whenever they ran up the stairs and all. I was so worried that they were fall down the stairs or something.
Eventually I distracted them with my Xbox 360, which occupied them for really long till they left. The wonders of technology...
Sun 23 Sep
I had service and cell group today, and finally, the core four boys were all back today. After cell group, I hung around to help my fiancee's sister and friend with maths and biology respectively. I still can remember almost everything! Hehe.
My fiancee and I headed off for dinner, and we decided to head back to White Sands. We found ourselves at Lerk Thai because we decided to give it a try. The food was surprisingly good. I had pineapple rice (for $2 with $10+ order...cheap), soup with beancurd, seafood and mushrooms, and my fiancee had Thai beef kway teow. We ordered red ruby, and tapioca with coconut cream for dessert. They were all good. The pineapple rice was fragrant and tasty. The soup was delicious, and had a good portion of everything inside, and the beancurd was so smooth and soft it almost melts in the mouth. The beef in the kway teow was very tender, and the noodles were smooth as well. The red ruby had just enough softness and crunch in the water chestnut. We are definitely going back again. I wonder if it's just this outlet that's good. Hmm...
Monday, September 17, 2007
Fri 14 Sep
Today was a relatively short day, and I quickly headed home to meet a Town Council person who was there to check out the leak at my window. He figured out what was the problem, and concluded that it was a HDB issue (I hate this ding-donging back and forth), so my fiancee rang up HDB to get them to send someone soon. The person said they would contact me by Mon, but I'm not hopeful, since it is HDB after all.
I went shopping with my fiancee later in the evening for ingredients to make pana cotta, pasta, and etc. It was time to experiment with cooking. Heh.
Sat 15 Sep
Today was the housewarming for my blood brudders. I woke up early to attempt to cook pasta - a trial run for myself before making more. The first attempt fumbled because of wrong proportions. The second attempt failed because I found that the cheese deeper inside the bag was mouldy. I went down to Elias Mall to buy mango for the pana cotta but the whole market did not have any left except one big mango. According to one stall owner, Indians bought almost everything yesterday for some ceremony/religious ritual or something. I went to the Sweet Talk bubble tea shop and negotiated with the aunty there to sell me one mango (in case the big one not enough), and headed back after buying chwee kweh and char siew buns for breakfast.
The soyabean didn't turn out the way we thought also. The sieve was not fine enough to filter off all the chaff (don't know what to call it), so it had this sandy feel on the throat upon drinking. The pana cotta also turned out a bit off. I calculated to scale up to about 12 people, but the rounding off error for 7/5 * 3 teaspoons of gelatine proved detrimental, and the pana cotta melted a bit too fast. We should have stuck to making pizza. At least that one went well.
The blood brudders came and left, with two of them stuck at my Xbox 360 until some of my relatives came over. That was round two of housewarming. They bought a whole lot of stuff for dinner, and they stayed till almost 10 pm because my uncle was hooked on the tv watching some period drama about Sun Zhi (which actually was quite engaging, to be fair; I was interested enough to consider finding the DVDs).
Sun 16 Sep
I had service as usual, but spent quite a bit of time talking to my cell leader about several issues during service. After church, I brought my boys, and my fiancee brought her girls along, to Eastpoint to have lunch at the Banquet food court, where I went for the superb Western food. My fiancee bought a cloth filter to finish the soyabean drink we started on. We then headed over back to our new place where we screened a movie Facing the Giants in place of the usual cell group. It was a good and touching Christian movie about a football coach who met with insurmountable obstacles, and left it all to God, who turned everything around. I liked it because it wasn't preachy, but was just a simple representation of revival, and people with solid Christian values.
They hung around a while more to play before calling it a day, and man, I was exhausted.
Mon 17 Sep
I had lessons in the morning, and ate a quick lunch before going to invigilate today's Maths paper. Alas, I think I have forgotten some of my maths. If I take the paper right now without reading up first, I'd probably score half of the marks only. I think permutation and combination will stick with me for life somehow.
After the invigilation, my fiancee and I headed for City Hall. We detoured on the way there to go to my old place to check my mail, and true enough, there was still a good deal of mail that was sent to my old address. I don't actually miss the place, except for two things - cow cat, and the food at the hawker centre. So we went there to eat. The char kway teow, Japanese food and the ice cream place were all closed, so we opted for the good food downstairs instead. We then went to Citilink to (window) shop around a bit before ending up at the actual destination of Robinson's. Some friends gave us $100 worth of vouchers, so we thought we might as well get something useful. In the end I bought glassware and crockery to replace some existing ones.
Anyway, true enough, HDB still hasn't contacted me. Great. If dengue mosquitoes were to breed in the pail of water I use to catch the leak, I'd pin the blame entirely on their inefficiency. (Just kidding...I change the water everyday. I wouldn't want to end up with dengue just to make a statement against the organisation.)
Today was a relatively short day, and I quickly headed home to meet a Town Council person who was there to check out the leak at my window. He figured out what was the problem, and concluded that it was a HDB issue (I hate this ding-donging back and forth), so my fiancee rang up HDB to get them to send someone soon. The person said they would contact me by Mon, but I'm not hopeful, since it is HDB after all.
I went shopping with my fiancee later in the evening for ingredients to make pana cotta, pasta, and etc. It was time to experiment with cooking. Heh.
Sat 15 Sep
Today was the housewarming for my blood brudders. I woke up early to attempt to cook pasta - a trial run for myself before making more. The first attempt fumbled because of wrong proportions. The second attempt failed because I found that the cheese deeper inside the bag was mouldy. I went down to Elias Mall to buy mango for the pana cotta but the whole market did not have any left except one big mango. According to one stall owner, Indians bought almost everything yesterday for some ceremony/religious ritual or something. I went to the Sweet Talk bubble tea shop and negotiated with the aunty there to sell me one mango (in case the big one not enough), and headed back after buying chwee kweh and char siew buns for breakfast.
The soyabean didn't turn out the way we thought also. The sieve was not fine enough to filter off all the chaff (don't know what to call it), so it had this sandy feel on the throat upon drinking. The pana cotta also turned out a bit off. I calculated to scale up to about 12 people, but the rounding off error for 7/5 * 3 teaspoons of gelatine proved detrimental, and the pana cotta melted a bit too fast. We should have stuck to making pizza. At least that one went well.
The blood brudders came and left, with two of them stuck at my Xbox 360 until some of my relatives came over. That was round two of housewarming. They bought a whole lot of stuff for dinner, and they stayed till almost 10 pm because my uncle was hooked on the tv watching some period drama about Sun Zhi (which actually was quite engaging, to be fair; I was interested enough to consider finding the DVDs).
Sun 16 Sep
I had service as usual, but spent quite a bit of time talking to my cell leader about several issues during service. After church, I brought my boys, and my fiancee brought her girls along, to Eastpoint to have lunch at the Banquet food court, where I went for the superb Western food. My fiancee bought a cloth filter to finish the soyabean drink we started on. We then headed over back to our new place where we screened a movie Facing the Giants in place of the usual cell group. It was a good and touching Christian movie about a football coach who met with insurmountable obstacles, and left it all to God, who turned everything around. I liked it because it wasn't preachy, but was just a simple representation of revival, and people with solid Christian values.
They hung around a while more to play before calling it a day, and man, I was exhausted.
Mon 17 Sep
I had lessons in the morning, and ate a quick lunch before going to invigilate today's Maths paper. Alas, I think I have forgotten some of my maths. If I take the paper right now without reading up first, I'd probably score half of the marks only. I think permutation and combination will stick with me for life somehow.
After the invigilation, my fiancee and I headed for City Hall. We detoured on the way there to go to my old place to check my mail, and true enough, there was still a good deal of mail that was sent to my old address. I don't actually miss the place, except for two things - cow cat, and the food at the hawker centre. So we went there to eat. The char kway teow, Japanese food and the ice cream place were all closed, so we opted for the good food downstairs instead. We then went to Citilink to (window) shop around a bit before ending up at the actual destination of Robinson's. Some friends gave us $100 worth of vouchers, so we thought we might as well get something useful. In the end I bought glassware and crockery to replace some existing ones.
Anyway, true enough, HDB still hasn't contacted me. Great. If dengue mosquitoes were to breed in the pail of water I use to catch the leak, I'd pin the blame entirely on their inefficiency. (Just kidding...I change the water everyday. I wouldn't want to end up with dengue just to make a statement against the organisation.)
Thursday, September 13, 2007
For anyone who gives two hoots about the Odex tyranny, here's the blog post of a guy who took it upon himself to stage a 'protest' in Singapore. Despite the peaceful attempt at a protest, I must say that this guy has got guts. Especially with the police scrutiny.
Read the first-hand account of Zero the Hero. And an internet report on the incident that our local press chose not to cover. If they really manage to do a petition to Sunrise/Bandai headquarters, I will definitely add my name to it as a fellow Otaku.
Read the first-hand account of Zero the Hero. And an internet report on the incident that our local press chose not to cover. If they really manage to do a petition to Sunrise/Bandai headquarters, I will definitely add my name to it as a fellow Otaku.
Mon 10 Sep
I had invigilation in the morning for physics, and I was going through the answers with the physics subject head, and he was pretty impressed that I still remember enough to be able to score A if I took the paper. Hehe. Then he started lamenting about the quality of students these days. Haha.
After class, I headed home to await all the various contractors who were coming to rectify some issues in the house. Now almost everything is done up properly, and it looks great. Yeah!
Tue 11 Sep
It was my short day today, thankfully. I headed home early to await the arrival of the person in charge of my curtains. Apparently, the fabric for the roller blinds in my bedroom is so heavy that the string is very hard to pull, and last night in a burst of strength, I dislodged the blinds roller system from its fixture. When the person was arranging the meeting time with me and I told her 2 pm, she exclaimed, "So late?" Goodness, does she think that nobody needs to work? I would have thought that the fact that I can be back by 2 pm in the first place is a rarity on its own. In the end the maintenance crew delayed till 5 pm before they came. Sigh. But they managed to fix the blind, helped lubricate the strings for all, and realign a few that were not exactly centralized.
Wed 12 Sep
I went to help distribute papers for the chemistry examination in the morning, and returned to mark the graded assignments for my TA classes. Looks like it will be massive marking from here on. After my lessons, I joined my colleagues to go Aston's for lunch. The steak is truly delicious, and the soup too. I think I'll stick to steak from now on, and medium rare's the only way to go for steak, in my opinion.
We headed back to school, and before the staff conference, I managed to mark a couple of classes for the prelims essay section. I think this is the worst lot I've drawn (actually, a colleague drew for me while I was in class) for exam marking so far. There's one descriptive part which is worth only 3 marks, but everyone seems to write a whole lot, and two 3-mark calculation parts that I decided to award error-carried forward, and it is an absolute pain to read through and figure out the working especially since there are at least four different ways to approach it. Bleah.
I marked furiously after the staff conference, and brought back three classes to mark as well. I joined my fiancee's family to celebrate her mother's birthday over a ncie zi char dinner. Considering all that we ordered, it was an affordable $40+ for 5 persons. By the time the night was through, I was one-third way done with the marking. Bwahaha. I love being me. Right now my nickname has evolved to "Lightning" by my colleague.
Thu 13 Sep
It's continuation of marking today! I'm glad that I'm giving my TA classes worksheets to do on the spot, because that roughly frees up close to an hour of time to do marking. Hehe. I managed to clear 8 classes in total for the two TA lessons I had. I'm one class short of completion...woohoo!
I had invigilation in the morning for physics, and I was going through the answers with the physics subject head, and he was pretty impressed that I still remember enough to be able to score A if I took the paper. Hehe. Then he started lamenting about the quality of students these days. Haha.
After class, I headed home to await all the various contractors who were coming to rectify some issues in the house. Now almost everything is done up properly, and it looks great. Yeah!
Tue 11 Sep
It was my short day today, thankfully. I headed home early to await the arrival of the person in charge of my curtains. Apparently, the fabric for the roller blinds in my bedroom is so heavy that the string is very hard to pull, and last night in a burst of strength, I dislodged the blinds roller system from its fixture. When the person was arranging the meeting time with me and I told her 2 pm, she exclaimed, "So late?" Goodness, does she think that nobody needs to work? I would have thought that the fact that I can be back by 2 pm in the first place is a rarity on its own. In the end the maintenance crew delayed till 5 pm before they came. Sigh. But they managed to fix the blind, helped lubricate the strings for all, and realign a few that were not exactly centralized.
Wed 12 Sep
I went to help distribute papers for the chemistry examination in the morning, and returned to mark the graded assignments for my TA classes. Looks like it will be massive marking from here on. After my lessons, I joined my colleagues to go Aston's for lunch. The steak is truly delicious, and the soup too. I think I'll stick to steak from now on, and medium rare's the only way to go for steak, in my opinion.
We headed back to school, and before the staff conference, I managed to mark a couple of classes for the prelims essay section. I think this is the worst lot I've drawn (actually, a colleague drew for me while I was in class) for exam marking so far. There's one descriptive part which is worth only 3 marks, but everyone seems to write a whole lot, and two 3-mark calculation parts that I decided to award error-carried forward, and it is an absolute pain to read through and figure out the working especially since there are at least four different ways to approach it. Bleah.
I marked furiously after the staff conference, and brought back three classes to mark as well. I joined my fiancee's family to celebrate her mother's birthday over a ncie zi char dinner. Considering all that we ordered, it was an affordable $40+ for 5 persons. By the time the night was through, I was one-third way done with the marking. Bwahaha. I love being me. Right now my nickname has evolved to "Lightning" by my colleague.
Thu 13 Sep
It's continuation of marking today! I'm glad that I'm giving my TA classes worksheets to do on the spot, because that roughly frees up close to an hour of time to do marking. Hehe. I managed to clear 8 classes in total for the two TA lessons I had. I'm one class short of completion...woohoo!
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Fri 7 Sep
I headed down to Tampines to get the fan cover of one of my fans fixed. Actually, it's just missing a fastening clip. I managed to buy some stuff that I need, and then I headed home. My fiancee came over early, and we were going to start making pizza! Actually, she did most of the hard work, especially the kneading of the dough. We bought the necessary ingredients like flour, olive oil, and etc yesternight already (which was one heck of a workout carrying back), and I went to buy drinks to stock up the fridge, and some tomatoes that I think would be good on the pizza. We made hawaiian pizza, and we tried one that I suggested, which had portabello mushrooms and tomatoes in the cheese, which tasted pretty good. One more used bacon bits and mushrooms, and was pretty alright too. In the end, I think we made about five pizzas. I found it quite fun, and wouldn't mind experimenting with new toppings next time. Hehe.
My cell group came over in the evening for the pizza and housewarming. We watched a part of a movie, and in the end, two of them stayed for mahjong with my fiancee and I. This was one bad loss for me. We played at twice the usual stakes, and I lost almost all the way. It was one of those unimaginable bad luck scenarios. I had it once before, where the tiles were just sucky every game, and even when I was about to game (which was rare for the night), someone would finish first. It had an ominous doomed-to-fail feeling from the start. Hope this kind of thing is few and far between. At least my loss to my colleagues yesterday I only attribute part of it to luck, and a greater part was the skill difference. I'm admittedly not as advanced a player as they are.
Sat 8 Sep
Today was the housewarming for my colleagues. Twelve of them in total came by, and some left early, two entertained themselves with my DVD collection, and the last three remaining played mahjong. This week has given me an overdose of mahjong that I think I won't be tempted to play again anytime soon. I miss karaoke, pool and movie watching though. Sigh. Time is definitely not on my side at the moment. Neither is money, apparently. I did manage to win a bit of money during the mahjong session though, to recoup my prior loss.
Sun 9 Sep
I woke up to surround sound this morning, and no, it did not come from my hifi system. It was the surround sound of the horns of the garang guni men. I think I am staying in a trashy neighbourhood because every morning the garang guni come looking for trash to collect. Worse still, it's not just one. There can be one at 8.30 am, one at 9.30 am, two at 10.30 am, and etc. I don't know if it's the same guy making repeated rounds, or if it's other guys, but man, it is very, very annoying because they are really, really loud (especially since the neighbourhood is so quiet). I don't think I can ever sleep in late till 11 am or after anymore during the weekends or holidays.
I went for service, and brought my boys over to White Sands where I treated them to a simple dinner, and let them come over to my house to have a tour, and play the Xbox 360. They were hooked to the console almost all the way for a couple of hours. Too bad not all of them were around this time.
Alright! Most of the housewarming is finished, except for a few more groups of friends. Somehow I feel that I lost time during this holidays partly because of the exam in the midweek, and the housewarming. My fiancee and I were so tired from playing mahjong that in the end, we didn't manage to discuss and settle some of the wedding preparations that we originally wanted to.
I headed down to Tampines to get the fan cover of one of my fans fixed. Actually, it's just missing a fastening clip. I managed to buy some stuff that I need, and then I headed home. My fiancee came over early, and we were going to start making pizza! Actually, she did most of the hard work, especially the kneading of the dough. We bought the necessary ingredients like flour, olive oil, and etc yesternight already (which was one heck of a workout carrying back), and I went to buy drinks to stock up the fridge, and some tomatoes that I think would be good on the pizza. We made hawaiian pizza, and we tried one that I suggested, which had portabello mushrooms and tomatoes in the cheese, which tasted pretty good. One more used bacon bits and mushrooms, and was pretty alright too. In the end, I think we made about five pizzas. I found it quite fun, and wouldn't mind experimenting with new toppings next time. Hehe.
My cell group came over in the evening for the pizza and housewarming. We watched a part of a movie, and in the end, two of them stayed for mahjong with my fiancee and I. This was one bad loss for me. We played at twice the usual stakes, and I lost almost all the way. It was one of those unimaginable bad luck scenarios. I had it once before, where the tiles were just sucky every game, and even when I was about to game (which was rare for the night), someone would finish first. It had an ominous doomed-to-fail feeling from the start. Hope this kind of thing is few and far between. At least my loss to my colleagues yesterday I only attribute part of it to luck, and a greater part was the skill difference. I'm admittedly not as advanced a player as they are.
Sat 8 Sep
Today was the housewarming for my colleagues. Twelve of them in total came by, and some left early, two entertained themselves with my DVD collection, and the last three remaining played mahjong. This week has given me an overdose of mahjong that I think I won't be tempted to play again anytime soon. I miss karaoke, pool and movie watching though. Sigh. Time is definitely not on my side at the moment. Neither is money, apparently. I did manage to win a bit of money during the mahjong session though, to recoup my prior loss.
Sun 9 Sep
I woke up to surround sound this morning, and no, it did not come from my hifi system. It was the surround sound of the horns of the garang guni men. I think I am staying in a trashy neighbourhood because every morning the garang guni come looking for trash to collect. Worse still, it's not just one. There can be one at 8.30 am, one at 9.30 am, two at 10.30 am, and etc. I don't know if it's the same guy making repeated rounds, or if it's other guys, but man, it is very, very annoying because they are really, really loud (especially since the neighbourhood is so quiet). I don't think I can ever sleep in late till 11 am or after anymore during the weekends or holidays.
I went for service, and brought my boys over to White Sands where I treated them to a simple dinner, and let them come over to my house to have a tour, and play the Xbox 360. They were hooked to the console almost all the way for a couple of hours. Too bad not all of them were around this time.
Alright! Most of the housewarming is finished, except for a few more groups of friends. Somehow I feel that I lost time during this holidays partly because of the exam in the midweek, and the housewarming. My fiancee and I were so tired from playing mahjong that in the end, we didn't manage to discuss and settle some of the wedding preparations that we originally wanted to.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Tue 4 Sep
I stayed at home the whole day today. Tomorrow there is a 45%-weightage exam for one module of my Masters' course, and a 20%-weightage assignment due. I usually would do my assignments way in advance, but recently I had been so busy that I couldn't finish my Masters' stuff in advance. I managed to finish the assignment by evening, but I just couldn't bring myself to start revision. In the end, I watched anime.
I finished the series Tsubasa Chronicles Season 2, at long last. I've blogged about Season 1 before, regarding how I was swindled, not realizing that it was incomplete. Now that I've ascertained that the animators just want to drag this series out for as long as they can, I guessed Season 2 also would have a continuation, and it was true. The series still has the party of characters travelling to different worlds, but there are a couple of interesting things. They revisit some worlds to see some consequences of their actions, for good or for bad. The underlying plot shows some development, but we still have no idea what the main character Syaoran is. The villains seem to have a Syaoran lookalike that seems to be able to influence the protagonist's actions. A pleasant to watch series, but not superbly engaging.
Wed 5 Sep
I finally got myself to study a bit, and inbetween did all kinds of other things, especially watching anime and taking a nap. I think not knowing the format of the paper didn't help the lack of motivation. I also thought I remembered enough to not really need to study. In the end, I just read through the lecture powerpoint, didn't bother with the tutorials, and didn't even flip through the textbook. It is an open-book exam, so it was only wise to know at least where the chapters are, but I figured the index at the back should be sufficient.
My colleague picked us up from Pasir Ris, and drove down to NIE for the exam. We were there ten minutes early, but it was like the whole classroom was packed out already. Apparently NIE couldn't find enough invigilators, so we had to squeeze two classes into one classroom. I went to help move the tables and chairs, and by 6 pm we were ready to start. The examination was due to end by 9 pm, but I found that I could answer everything, and substantially as well, so I left by 7.20 pm because it was getting too cold and I was hungry. My fiancee and colleague were not done yet, so I walked all the way to Canteen A to buy Japanese food for dinner, and walked back to the area outside the exam classroom to wait for them. The distance wasn't far, but carrying one file of notes and a textbook back and forth was disgusting.
After they were both done, my colleague drove us down to Pasir Ris, where they had dinner at Hei Sushi, and I got to eat a second dinner. Yes! One module down.
Thu 6 Sep
My fiancee and I headed down to Pagoda Street to pick up our order for wedding favours and invitation cards (for the wedding dinner). We then headed over to Di Gio Bridal to check on the second attempt for the layout. It was more or less alright, so I asked my coordinator for the softcopy versions, and later in the day, tweaked in the corrections myself. I have done up a website with pictures of the wedding album, so you can have a look at it here. Do wait a while for it to load. Although I compressed the pictures, the whole flash file is still about 5 Mb. You can flip the pages using the mouse, so have fun exploring the site.
Later in the afternoon, three of my colleagues came over for mahjong. I lost a small amount of money again. I realized that once joker tiles are involved, the element of luck becomes more important. Ah well.
I stayed at home the whole day today. Tomorrow there is a 45%-weightage exam for one module of my Masters' course, and a 20%-weightage assignment due. I usually would do my assignments way in advance, but recently I had been so busy that I couldn't finish my Masters' stuff in advance. I managed to finish the assignment by evening, but I just couldn't bring myself to start revision. In the end, I watched anime.
I finished the series Tsubasa Chronicles Season 2, at long last. I've blogged about Season 1 before, regarding how I was swindled, not realizing that it was incomplete. Now that I've ascertained that the animators just want to drag this series out for as long as they can, I guessed Season 2 also would have a continuation, and it was true. The series still has the party of characters travelling to different worlds, but there are a couple of interesting things. They revisit some worlds to see some consequences of their actions, for good or for bad. The underlying plot shows some development, but we still have no idea what the main character Syaoran is. The villains seem to have a Syaoran lookalike that seems to be able to influence the protagonist's actions. A pleasant to watch series, but not superbly engaging.
Wed 5 Sep
I finally got myself to study a bit, and inbetween did all kinds of other things, especially watching anime and taking a nap. I think not knowing the format of the paper didn't help the lack of motivation. I also thought I remembered enough to not really need to study. In the end, I just read through the lecture powerpoint, didn't bother with the tutorials, and didn't even flip through the textbook. It is an open-book exam, so it was only wise to know at least where the chapters are, but I figured the index at the back should be sufficient.
My colleague picked us up from Pasir Ris, and drove down to NIE for the exam. We were there ten minutes early, but it was like the whole classroom was packed out already. Apparently NIE couldn't find enough invigilators, so we had to squeeze two classes into one classroom. I went to help move the tables and chairs, and by 6 pm we were ready to start. The examination was due to end by 9 pm, but I found that I could answer everything, and substantially as well, so I left by 7.20 pm because it was getting too cold and I was hungry. My fiancee and colleague were not done yet, so I walked all the way to Canteen A to buy Japanese food for dinner, and walked back to the area outside the exam classroom to wait for them. The distance wasn't far, but carrying one file of notes and a textbook back and forth was disgusting.
After they were both done, my colleague drove us down to Pasir Ris, where they had dinner at Hei Sushi, and I got to eat a second dinner. Yes! One module down.
Thu 6 Sep
My fiancee and I headed down to Pagoda Street to pick up our order for wedding favours and invitation cards (for the wedding dinner). We then headed over to Di Gio Bridal to check on the second attempt for the layout. It was more or less alright, so I asked my coordinator for the softcopy versions, and later in the day, tweaked in the corrections myself. I have done up a website with pictures of the wedding album, so you can have a look at it here. Do wait a while for it to load. Although I compressed the pictures, the whole flash file is still about 5 Mb. You can flip the pages using the mouse, so have fun exploring the site.
Later in the afternoon, three of my colleagues came over for mahjong. I lost a small amount of money again. I realized that once joker tiles are involved, the element of luck becomes more important. Ah well.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Sigh. Another 6-day post. I need to blog more regularly, i.e. do less work...
Wed 29 Aug
I thought I couldn't make it for cell group because of Homecoming Dinner rehearsal, but in the end, the rehearsal was postponed because the vendors couldn't finish the stage in time due to rain. I ended early enough, so I headed home for a short nap, before heading down to Bukit Merah where I met Collin for dinner. It was really, really far. Now I can truly understand and empathize with my fiancee when she complained about distance between Bukit Merah and Bedok. The inertia was truly overwhelming. I can also understand the difficulty that my boys and a couple of G12 brothers must face when they come to Expo every Sunday from the far west.
Thu 30 Aug
The longest day, by a long mile. I had lessons in the morning, followed by some planning for the logistics; I think I'm just about the only person I know who, when put in charge of logistics overall inclusive of the carpark, would go and sketch a layout of the carpark, and draw it out nicely on a Word document almost to scale with all the lots numbered for easier reference for my team and the student marshalls. This is my idea of professionalism.
I then had a consultation for a period, double period lessons, followed by a two period consultation, followed by a one-period remedial, followed by the Homecoming Dinner full rehearsal. Back to back, and back-breaking, if you ask me. Tomorrow is Staff Day celebrations, and I'm slogging my life away. As my fiancee puts it, it is more like Labour Day, and no, not like the holiday that we have on 1 May.
Fri 31 Aug
Today was the day the madness would end. We started with Staff Day celebrations, which ended in an hour's time. I think the length truly reflects the importance of this day, because I think the current generation is less appreciative of teachers (and maybe their parents too) these days, and somehow, it feels increasingly so. I have only 4 years of teaching experience thereabouts, and I think that the mood seems to be less and less joyous as the time goes by. I'm not even talking about the gifts, which incidentally seem to have reduced as well, but I'm talking about the heart of the students. I see a few students (other colleagues report the exact same thing) who did not even greet me a "Happy Teachers' Day" but straightaway asked me if I was free to answer their chemistry questions, or to attend to some other matter. I seriously do not remember such instances a recent two, three years ago. Many colleagues mentioned disappointment at similar things, and I'm convinced that this is a gradual downturn. For all I know, in a few years' time, the students may write a petition in to request that we just have normal lessons instead of the Staff Day celebrations. Looking at the lacklustre climate in general, I wouldn't mind, since the day feels almost redundant.
The day was made worse with the fact that I see most of my colleagues going off to have fun and relax before returning to college for Homecoming Dinner, and I had to stay throughout to do work. In fact, I only stepped out of the college for a miserable ten minutes to buy lunch back for my fiancee and another colleague. I managed to settle the bulk of the logistics smoothly, and was standing by since 3.30 pm for rehearsals and setting up when the dinner was going to start at 7.30 pm. What a wonderful teachers' day. I think I have to work harder and longer than my usual schoolday.
The bad day deteriorated further when things started to go awry at the carpark. I was supposed to be roaming between various points as the Logistics Head, but I was held up at the carpark because many incidents kept happening. The students were not assertive enough to turn away the guests when the carpark was full, but I think I can't blame them since they were not likely to assume authority in that situation. My colleague stationed at the gate was too nice, so that proved an issue at a couple of points, and for some moments, he did not use the walkie-talkie (or maybe the students weren't listening?) and walked over to the student marshalls, giving some drivers the opportunity to sneak through the gate, and I had to redirect.
Worse still, another colleague stationed at the main gate, who was only supposed to allow VVIPs into the college, left his post to usher a VVIP in (which we had informed him earlier that it was the Student Councillors' role), and a few cars came in through the main gate, and headed to the carpark through the side route, causing a minor jam, and my massive redirection of traffic. I had to sprint to the main gate to control the situation, and tell the security guards to keep away all non-VVIP cars. It really didn't help when I met some nasty visitors who were rude, and two even threatened to skip the dinner and not pay my colleague (who paid on her behalf), to which I firmly rejected. In the end, they said they were not coming, but I saw them drive into the HDB carpark (which was my suggestion to them in the first place), and appear at the dinner. As a friend said, doing logisitics is a shit job. There is nothing you can control, and you are just waiting for everything to go wrong last minute. The only difference is whether you can be calm about it, and handle crises on the spot. I guess I managed that, but my blood boiled in the process.
Still, the crises were not apparent to the general public, so my logistics team of colleagues managed to hold the fort in the end, so thankfully they were sufficiently capable, else my head would roll.
I managed to win a prize in the lucky draw! Not a simple feat, since this time round, there were only about 5 prizes for 800 people. So far, I have been winning a prize in every lucky draw for Staff Day dinner in previous years (the best was one year's second prize, which was a $150 voucher), and my record is unbroken. Some colleagues who congratulated me said that this must surely be a reward for my hard work, and I could only reply, "After all that I've done, they still feed me to the sharks?" The prize I got was a voucher for Underwater World - Dive With the Sharks. -_-
Thank God it was over! Smoothly enough.
Sat 1 Sep
My fiancee and I met to go down to Marriott Hotel for the annual Christian Teachers' Conference hosted by my church. It is now an annual tradition to sacrifice the morning of the Teachers' Day holiday for this. Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew was the guest of honour, and I must say, when he shared his speech for the day, it sounded like a sermon off the pulpit. It is heartening to know that a minister of state is a devout Christian. The tea break was fantastic, and I grabbed about three servings. Really good stuff there. Senior Pastor was there as well, and he shared a message with the same points as a sermon he had preached before, but the spin on it was different, and tailor-made to teachers, so there was still something new to learn.
After the conference, we headed back to our new flat to await the arrival of some of our friends for housewarming. In the meantime, we noticed that there are new holes in our master bedroom door. Actually we spotted some holes the size of a small nail appearing days ago, but now we were pretty sure that it wasn't some accidentally drilling from the past. I called my interior designer, who immediately sent someone to remove the door, so now the room is doorless. After some research off the net by my fiancee, we discovered that it was the work of a beetle that has larvae that tunnels through wood when it is maturing. When it surfaces as a beetle, we see those nice round emergence holes (that term reminds me of the game Gears of War, because the emergence holes were what the alien monsters swarm out of). Our friends turned out to be the first ones to use the virgin mahjong tiles and table.
We went to the Hei Sushi at White Sands for dinner, and after we came back, only two of our friends (a married coupe) remained, and we continued the mahjong session all the way till 6.15 am in the morning! I couldn't quite believe the fact that they could stay up so late, but they did. My eventual winnings for the day, after deducting the loss from my fiancee, was $7+. A pittance, but it was 8 hours in total of fun. Haha.
Sun 2 Sep
The original plan was for my boys to come over to my place for cell group, but somehow that fell through because three of the five of them who were there had to be somewhere else soon after service, so I decided to postpone it. Ah well. My fiancee and I went over to the Crystal Jade at Changi Airport for dinner, to use up a voucher before it expired. Yes, this is the season where the credit cards have enough points to redeem vouchers! Woohoo!
Mon 3 Sep
I went back to school today to have a make-up lesson and a make-up remedial. I had breakfast with my fiancee at Yakun before heading down to college. I had a nice little chat with my colleague, and I found out that he did manage to woo his ex-girlfriend back after his breakup. The interesting thing was that I prayed for him during the 100k campaign, and regarding this aspect specifically, and he remembered it, to the extent of pointing to the pamphlet, and saying that my prayer worked. It is always a wonderful feeling to hear a prebeliever say that prayer works. In fact, he went on to ask me if it was alright that he has a bible, because one of his students gave him that as a present for Teachers' Day, and I had the chance to talk to him more about the bible for a short while. Praise God!
Wed 29 Aug
I thought I couldn't make it for cell group because of Homecoming Dinner rehearsal, but in the end, the rehearsal was postponed because the vendors couldn't finish the stage in time due to rain. I ended early enough, so I headed home for a short nap, before heading down to Bukit Merah where I met Collin for dinner. It was really, really far. Now I can truly understand and empathize with my fiancee when she complained about distance between Bukit Merah and Bedok. The inertia was truly overwhelming. I can also understand the difficulty that my boys and a couple of G12 brothers must face when they come to Expo every Sunday from the far west.
Thu 30 Aug
The longest day, by a long mile. I had lessons in the morning, followed by some planning for the logistics; I think I'm just about the only person I know who, when put in charge of logistics overall inclusive of the carpark, would go and sketch a layout of the carpark, and draw it out nicely on a Word document almost to scale with all the lots numbered for easier reference for my team and the student marshalls. This is my idea of professionalism.
I then had a consultation for a period, double period lessons, followed by a two period consultation, followed by a one-period remedial, followed by the Homecoming Dinner full rehearsal. Back to back, and back-breaking, if you ask me. Tomorrow is Staff Day celebrations, and I'm slogging my life away. As my fiancee puts it, it is more like Labour Day, and no, not like the holiday that we have on 1 May.
Fri 31 Aug
Today was the day the madness would end. We started with Staff Day celebrations, which ended in an hour's time. I think the length truly reflects the importance of this day, because I think the current generation is less appreciative of teachers (and maybe their parents too) these days, and somehow, it feels increasingly so. I have only 4 years of teaching experience thereabouts, and I think that the mood seems to be less and less joyous as the time goes by. I'm not even talking about the gifts, which incidentally seem to have reduced as well, but I'm talking about the heart of the students. I see a few students (other colleagues report the exact same thing) who did not even greet me a "Happy Teachers' Day" but straightaway asked me if I was free to answer their chemistry questions, or to attend to some other matter. I seriously do not remember such instances a recent two, three years ago. Many colleagues mentioned disappointment at similar things, and I'm convinced that this is a gradual downturn. For all I know, in a few years' time, the students may write a petition in to request that we just have normal lessons instead of the Staff Day celebrations. Looking at the lacklustre climate in general, I wouldn't mind, since the day feels almost redundant.
The day was made worse with the fact that I see most of my colleagues going off to have fun and relax before returning to college for Homecoming Dinner, and I had to stay throughout to do work. In fact, I only stepped out of the college for a miserable ten minutes to buy lunch back for my fiancee and another colleague. I managed to settle the bulk of the logistics smoothly, and was standing by since 3.30 pm for rehearsals and setting up when the dinner was going to start at 7.30 pm. What a wonderful teachers' day. I think I have to work harder and longer than my usual schoolday.
The bad day deteriorated further when things started to go awry at the carpark. I was supposed to be roaming between various points as the Logistics Head, but I was held up at the carpark because many incidents kept happening. The students were not assertive enough to turn away the guests when the carpark was full, but I think I can't blame them since they were not likely to assume authority in that situation. My colleague stationed at the gate was too nice, so that proved an issue at a couple of points, and for some moments, he did not use the walkie-talkie (or maybe the students weren't listening?) and walked over to the student marshalls, giving some drivers the opportunity to sneak through the gate, and I had to redirect.
Worse still, another colleague stationed at the main gate, who was only supposed to allow VVIPs into the college, left his post to usher a VVIP in (which we had informed him earlier that it was the Student Councillors' role), and a few cars came in through the main gate, and headed to the carpark through the side route, causing a minor jam, and my massive redirection of traffic. I had to sprint to the main gate to control the situation, and tell the security guards to keep away all non-VVIP cars. It really didn't help when I met some nasty visitors who were rude, and two even threatened to skip the dinner and not pay my colleague (who paid on her behalf), to which I firmly rejected. In the end, they said they were not coming, but I saw them drive into the HDB carpark (which was my suggestion to them in the first place), and appear at the dinner. As a friend said, doing logisitics is a shit job. There is nothing you can control, and you are just waiting for everything to go wrong last minute. The only difference is whether you can be calm about it, and handle crises on the spot. I guess I managed that, but my blood boiled in the process.
Still, the crises were not apparent to the general public, so my logistics team of colleagues managed to hold the fort in the end, so thankfully they were sufficiently capable, else my head would roll.
I managed to win a prize in the lucky draw! Not a simple feat, since this time round, there were only about 5 prizes for 800 people. So far, I have been winning a prize in every lucky draw for Staff Day dinner in previous years (the best was one year's second prize, which was a $150 voucher), and my record is unbroken. Some colleagues who congratulated me said that this must surely be a reward for my hard work, and I could only reply, "After all that I've done, they still feed me to the sharks?" The prize I got was a voucher for Underwater World - Dive With the Sharks. -_-
Thank God it was over! Smoothly enough.
Sat 1 Sep
My fiancee and I met to go down to Marriott Hotel for the annual Christian Teachers' Conference hosted by my church. It is now an annual tradition to sacrifice the morning of the Teachers' Day holiday for this. Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew was the guest of honour, and I must say, when he shared his speech for the day, it sounded like a sermon off the pulpit. It is heartening to know that a minister of state is a devout Christian. The tea break was fantastic, and I grabbed about three servings. Really good stuff there. Senior Pastor was there as well, and he shared a message with the same points as a sermon he had preached before, but the spin on it was different, and tailor-made to teachers, so there was still something new to learn.
After the conference, we headed back to our new flat to await the arrival of some of our friends for housewarming. In the meantime, we noticed that there are new holes in our master bedroom door. Actually we spotted some holes the size of a small nail appearing days ago, but now we were pretty sure that it wasn't some accidentally drilling from the past. I called my interior designer, who immediately sent someone to remove the door, so now the room is doorless. After some research off the net by my fiancee, we discovered that it was the work of a beetle that has larvae that tunnels through wood when it is maturing. When it surfaces as a beetle, we see those nice round emergence holes (that term reminds me of the game Gears of War, because the emergence holes were what the alien monsters swarm out of). Our friends turned out to be the first ones to use the virgin mahjong tiles and table.
We went to the Hei Sushi at White Sands for dinner, and after we came back, only two of our friends (a married coupe) remained, and we continued the mahjong session all the way till 6.15 am in the morning! I couldn't quite believe the fact that they could stay up so late, but they did. My eventual winnings for the day, after deducting the loss from my fiancee, was $7+. A pittance, but it was 8 hours in total of fun. Haha.
Sun 2 Sep
The original plan was for my boys to come over to my place for cell group, but somehow that fell through because three of the five of them who were there had to be somewhere else soon after service, so I decided to postpone it. Ah well. My fiancee and I went over to the Crystal Jade at Changi Airport for dinner, to use up a voucher before it expired. Yes, this is the season where the credit cards have enough points to redeem vouchers! Woohoo!
Mon 3 Sep
I went back to school today to have a make-up lesson and a make-up remedial. I had breakfast with my fiancee at Yakun before heading down to college. I had a nice little chat with my colleague, and I found out that he did manage to woo his ex-girlfriend back after his breakup. The interesting thing was that I prayed for him during the 100k campaign, and regarding this aspect specifically, and he remembered it, to the extent of pointing to the pamphlet, and saying that my prayer worked. It is always a wonderful feeling to hear a prebeliever say that prayer works. In fact, he went on to ask me if it was alright that he has a bible, because one of his students gave him that as a present for Teachers' Day, and I had the chance to talk to him more about the bible for a short while. Praise God!