Wed 21 Nov

I went back to school with my wife to settle some school administrative stuff, i.e. testimonials, and for me, budget for the Media Resource Unit and my Audio Visual Club. The internet was down, so we ran into many problems which took up a lot more time than expected. We went back to my wife's place to have dinner before going down for cell group. My G12 brother Eric happened to be in the area so he gave me a ride. On the way back, my G12 leader gave me a ride back, so that was two blessings in a row!

Thu 22 Nov

We went down to Ikea today to change a lamp which was spoilt. It was a housewarming gift, and to be fair, it worked for about two minutes before dying a sudden death. We received $100 Ikea vouchers from some students during the wedding as well, so we wanted to spend the money. When we went there, the staff didn't exchange the lamp for us, but rather gave us a receipt that was a refund for the lamp, so we suddenly had plenty to spend.

In the end, we bought many containers, a rug, a small table, organisers for drawers, and plants, but they did not amount enough to spend the vouchers, so I only used the refund and topped up some instead. So the vouchers were still unused. Ah well. Discovery of the day: the ice cream at the Ikea stall (the one that sells hot dog buns, not the cafe) tastes really good. Smooth and thick, with what I think is a butterscotch taste.

Fri 23 Nov

We were planning to stay home the whole day to tidy up the house and do chores, and to sort out my Magic cards (hehe) when Angeline, one of my wife's good friends suddenly called her to tell her that she had spare tickets to a Cantonese musical at Downtown East's The Marquee. My wife was interested, so I was pulled along, even though I don't really understand Cantonese. Fortunately, there were subtitles on the side screens! The musical is called Shooting Stars, and the story is based on three good friends who ventured into the entertainment industry, dared to dream, and met with successes and failures. The whole musical strings together 40 songs by Leslie Cheung and Danny Chan, and the musical itself is a tribute to them, so the musical's ending was, therefore, not quite a happy one. The musical was quite good, and would have been more entertaining if I can understand Cantonese better. It had a nice thread of friendship in the storyline throughout. Not bad for a something that came free. Heh.

Sat 24 Nov

My wife, mother and I went to White Sands to celebrate my mum's birthday. We ended up at Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe to try the food. My mum ordered the fried rice with pork floss, which was tasty with plenty of floss (swimming in it, actually), and the portion was really big. It kind of went downhill from there. My wife ordered roast duck spinach noodles. The duck meat was tender, but the skin wasn't fantastic. The sauce for the noodles was way too sweet, and the whole dish was really oily. I ordered pork chop ramen, and it seriously sucked. The whole thing was just a bunch of noodles, some vegetables, and one pork chop. Hence the pork chop should be the most delicious part of the dish. It was just pork meat cooked till edible. No crispiness or anything, tasting totally flat, like it had no marinade either.

We came back in the afternoon to await my friends who were coming over to play mahjong. Collin, Alan, J and I played till dinner time (I lost a bit of money) before my wife and I went over to Lerk Thai for dinner with J and his girlfriend. We then came back for round 2, and I won back more than I lost earlier. But the whole day's wins were generally boring. No one did anything really noteworthy.

Sun 25 Nov

I went to service in the afternoon, and went to Eastpoint for cell group. My wife encountered an unreasonable salesgirl at Precious Memories Gifts when she was buying gifts for friends. She bought 10 different items, and asked for 7 plastic bags for the gifts that were hard to wrap, and the salesgirl refused! The salesgirl said that she gave one big bag already, to which my wife explained why she needed extra bags (to give to separate persons separate gifts). The salesgirl went on to say that the plastic bags cost them money to buy (duh, of course the shop needs to spend money to get bags...which shop gets it at no cost?), so cannot give extra. My wife then explained that if ten separate customers came in to buy the ten separate items, the shop would still give out ten bags, and she was not asking for extra, but what would be fair to be given her (actually even less). Finally the salesgirl said something like, "Forget it, you want then I give you" in an irritated way.

I was looking at other items, so I wasn't at the counter though I could hear the whole conversation. Frankly, I don't know what in the world the salesgirl was thinking. The total cost of the items costed like 70+ bucks, so it was not like we were buying one small measly item and asking for ten bags. At that point, if she still insisted on not giving, I would have gone over to tell my wife to just buy one item. At a time. So once she gives us one bag for one item, we'll ask for and pay for the next item. Until we have ten bags. On the other hand, I think my wife would probably just dump everything and leave the shop if the salesgirl refused to budge. I think I would rather stay, spend some time, and (forcefully) drive the point across.

Discovery of the week 1: Once you get married, everyone who you meet will ask you this question in the exact same words, "How's married life?" I wish I had a better answer than that it felt pretty much the same except there's now a piece of metal on my fourth finger. Haha.

Discovery of the week 2: The next most popular question (or its variations) is about honeymoon. "Where did you go/are you going for your honeymoon?" or "Eh, you not at honeymoon now meh?" I wish I had a better answer than that we don't know where to go even at this point, and are considering Hong Kong at the moment. But I think our inertia is so high at the moment that we don't really mind if the honeymoon doesn't materialize actually.

Sat 17 Nov

It's the wedding day at last! I slept at 2 plus last night, but not because I was too excited. Rather, I thought I might be too excited to sleep, so I decided I would tire myself out completely so that I can concuss straightaway and watched anime instead. My brothers came over punctually, and we got ready in time. We also reached my bride's place on time. But I was sitting in the car a really long time, waiting for my bride's cousin to come open the door for me. The first screwup of the day was that the hand bouquet was left in my bride's house (we both didn't realize that it should be brought by me), so her aunt had to come down to deliver it to me first.

The 'torture' at the bride's house was mild relative to other horror stories I had heard. I drank down super sour lime juice only (no sweet, spicy and bitter this time). My brothers and I had to search the corridor for words on white scraps of paper to form a verse from the bible. I found 5 out of 11, thanks to my Photohunt skills...bwahaha. Then I was made to sketch (with a lousy pen) what my bride would look like today, which my brothers did push-ups. Then I was made to do some funny calculations and shout mushy stuff.

We headed down to the church earlier than expected. It was a good thing that the church was nearby. My mum was late for the signing of the ROM certificate though, but that was because she couldn't get a cab at all. The next screwup (a major one) was that I didn't pick up the church blessing certificate beforehand. I had assumed that my pastor would have in, especially since the lady in charge of church administration did not ask me about it or remind me to get it when she called me a couple of days ago. The best thing was that the Chai Chee church office was, well, down the road only, so it was a well-chosen location to have the wedding. Haha. The ceremony started late, as my emcee was late. That in itself was understandable still, considering how late he stayed up till in order to translate the sermon last minute once it was out. The satisfying thing was the laughter evoked by my comic (literally) video animation of how I got together with my bride. In fact, it was so well-received that Elder Jeffrey of BBTC, the church I accompanied my bride to for Alpha Course, requested that I give him a copy of the video so that he can advertise the lighter side of Alpha Course. He nicknamed me "Alpha Romeo", which I found deliriously witty. He's a funny guy.

Everything else for the church wedding went smoothly. The surprising part was the tribute to parents, and I could see my mum and relatives, my bride's parents and relatives, and even some of the guests, crying or tearing away. My wife cried hard too. The thing about inviting students is that somehow all of them want to take additional pictures with us. In the end, we did not manage to eat anything much at all. Then again, all we wanted was to drink, because we were parched thirsty. The hunger pangs were long over by then.

We rushed back to my place for the tea ceremony. The traffic on the road was very heavy today, and I suspect it had to be because of too many weddings on this auspicious day. Haha. The tea ceremony also screwed up a little in the sense that my third aunt and youngest uncle came late. Very late. Apparently, he had to work before that, and went to pick up my third aunt, and none of my other relatives wanted to start the ceremony before they arrived. So it dragged on. The other screwup of the day was that one of my brothers, who I assigned the role of video-ing the process told me the day before that he needed to leave early to study for exams, which my wedding was right smack in the middle of. That was my oversight, in a way, but thankfully, my cell leader volunteered and took over the role graciously. We then headed over to my wife's place for the tea ceremony, which went pretty fast because they were well-prepared by then.

We managed to grab a little rest inbetween because the makeup artist was stuck in a jam and was late. J hung out at my place since it didn't make sense for him to travel back and forth. We went down to the dinner place a little earlier than expected. Unfortunately, the dinner place had some issues that we had not anticipated. The airconditioning was not cold enough, and there was no lighting outside the area set aside for our banquet. It was also a little bit too cramped, and my wife and I are still feeling apologetic about it. All we can hope for was that the food was good enough to make up for the loss in experience, since this was a much abbrieviated affair, compared to the usual dinner. We had the last course served at 9 plus, and we wrapped up, reaching home at around 10.30 pm. That has got to be the record for a wedding dinner, I reckon. I think that also compensates for the lack of airconditioning and cramped conditions.

Man, we are really glad that it is finally over.

Sun 18 Nov

We slept in late pretty much, and I was soon counting and accounting for money for a good part of the day. There was also a great number of gifts from the students, but surprisingly, contrary to what my naysayer colleague predicted ("lots of precious moments, bedsheets and useless things") for a teacher's wedding, most of the presents were unique (as in not repeated) and of use. Of course, there were bedsheets, chocolates, ornaments, but there were also glasses, toiletries set (as in cool toothbrush holder, soap dispenser, and etc), a Tefal cooking pan, Corelle plate set. In all honesty, although counting cash feels really good, it was quite a sweet and touching experience opening the gifts from our students and seeing the sincerity and effort that had gone into the searching behind the gifts. Thanks everyone! Not sure who amongst our students are reading my blog, but heck, here's a holler to say we appreciate all the presents!


Here's a shot of what we received:


















We were supposed to return the gowns and suits today, but the rain came and stopped us from going out. In an odd turn of events, two of my magic kakis came out to visit and played for a while. I was shocked that Yichuan, who had expressed that he would at most buy some single cards, went to whack a box. I think my old gang is back. Cool. My old hobby has been resurrected from the grave.

Mon 19 Nov

My wife and I rushed out to the bridal studio to return the gowns as soon as we possibly could, but we still could not outrun the rain. Fortunately, we got a cab before it really poured on us. After we dropped off the clothes, we went out shopping using the vouchers that we received on our wedding from the students. We bought a suitcase and other items using Robinsons vouchers, and a thermal cooking pot using the BHG vouchers. I love vouchers sometimes. Cash is technically better as a received gift, but I would feel the pinch if I want to spend it freely, so I'd probably just save it. Vouchers force me to spend, and spending almost always feels shiok. Haha. Such is consumer mentality. Looks like the shopping centres got it right by having vouchers available as gifts.

Food find of the day: Chippy UK Takeaway at the basement of Raffles City Shopping Centre has superb food. We ordered the 10 pc beer-battered fish and fries, and it costed only $4.60! The portion was equivalent to an outside fish-and-chips, but it was super well-fried, and delicious. Just like how I would not eat porridge elsewhere after Crystal Jade, I think I would not go Long John Silvers' to eat fish again after Chippy. And the cheese-filled hot dog was the absolute best I have eaten in a long, long while. Now, I generally don't like hot dogs, but this one was so well grilled that the crispy surface tastes like bacon! The mashed potato tastes good too, and that costs $3.50. We thought we were just snacking, but it felt like we ate a proper dinner.

Highlight of the day: success in taming hamster number 3, named Pikachiu (actually Pikachew, because he likes to bite and chew my fingers). He finally was willing to crawl out of the cage onto my hand and let me play with it. Woohoo! This one is the most cowardly of the lot, and dare not even crawl out of the cage when we left it open deliberately. The other two were running all over. Hamster 1 is my personal favourite, Xiao Bai (because his fur is very white...not very creative, I admit), and Hamster 2 is named Beckham (because he really likes to kick), which was just tamed a couple of days before the wedding. It is quite fun to play with the hamsters actually when they run all over.

Tue 20 Nov

Today we went to bank in our ang pow money to all the respective credit cards waiting to deduct payments. Sigh. It was fun counting money of course, but too bad at the end of the day, there isn't much left that is actually ours to keep. Actually it was quite satisfying giving out ang pows to all our helpers as generously as we could possibly afford. I think God really blessed and provided even though we took a small step of faith to give away more than we thought was within our means.

In the evening, we went over to my wife's place to eat dinner with my in-laws. Today's my father-in-law's birthday (actually, my sister-in-law's birthday as well, but she was away at a camp), so we celebrated by eating at this Hiang Suar restaurant nearby. The food was really good, and it was very affordable considering that we had prawns and the like. The price was comparable to a normal zi char stall, but the restaurant had air-con! The food is so much better than the zi char stall opposite, which is supposedly famous and next to a famous sliced fish bee hoon stall, but we found that the food was far from the hype - yet it still has roaring business.

This is my last entry on this blog...

As a bachelor.

The day has finally arrived, and already, on the eve, despite my detailed planning, things still started to go wrong last minute. I think human error and negligence is something that no amount of planning can accomodate. But I think the logistical side of my brain is pretty active.

Something curious happened on Mon when I went for my haircut. The salon owner, Calvin, remarked that I recommended some people to his salon. I was puzzled because I totally didn't remember talking about the salon to anyone. He then told me that one of them is a friend of mine, and the other one doesn't know me, but both of them read my blog and therefore came to the salon.

I am amazed at the power of the internet. I mean, my blog has only quite few hits a day, I reckon, but it actually managed to bring business to someone. Quite something there. Anyway, I think it is a good thing if people who read my blog actually trust my opinion enough to give the places I recommend a try. Speaking of recommendations, I just brought my good friend, J, over to Lerk Thai at White Sands. He told me I was doing poor marketing, because I kept mentioning how good the food is, and he said that it only raises expectations. Well, it is true from a marketing point of view that I should undersell, and let it overdeliver, but in any case, despite my hype, he was impressed with the food. Now I am really curious to check out other outlets in other parts of Singapore to see if the standard is consistent.

On Tue I had my church wedding rehearsal. It was somewhat of a mess, but I think at least everything got sorted out more or less. I hope on the actual day I would be more serious, because I was grinning away the whole time. Something about the rehearsal really tickled and amused me to no end.

I've spent the last few days with my fiancee trying to tidy up all the loose ends and all, and spent today doing a major cleaning up of the house. Finally I cleared the master bedroom (actually, some of the things just got moved to the guestroom...guess total tidiness will happen only after the second phase of carpentry is done in Dec), and it looks like a proper bedroom. It looked somewhat of a junkyard for a moment when the stray objects did not have a proper home to be kept in. Man, the amount of planning involved in a church wedding is scary. Now I know why many people I know just dump almost everything to the wedding coordinator(s). Anyway, as long as nothing goes wrong, I don't mind the hard work. I just pray that the weather will be good (i.e. cool and dark, but not rainy) because I would want my videos to be clearly visible, so there shouldn't be bright sunlight through the stained glass. It's my sweat and toil, after all.

I hope I don't get 'arrowed' to do videos in school now that I've busted my cover that I actually can do video editing. That is a niche area that I'd rather leave to my more experienced colleagues. Haha.

I realize I am a control freak. On top of that, a perfectionist. Over certain things. During the preparations for the wedding, I recognized that I find that I want to do everything myself where possible for several reasons:

1. I want to do it myself to make sure nothing goes wrong (it's easier to blame myself than someone else if something did go wrong)
2. I think I can do a better job (than most people, in many things)
3. I feel that I am more free now that it is the holidays; I feel bad asking other people to do things when they are working for the good part of the day and I am not

It is under such conditions that I end up doing a detailed schedule plus specific instructions for each group of helpers, a video to show all the wedding photographs and programme for the wedding, and a top-secret item in addition. I feel that I must live up to the expectations that I would either do something different, or do something really pro. Hopefully I can pull off both. Hahaha. My fiancee's doing the photo montage as well, and we are both trying to master ULead Videostudio 11 (the free trial version, in case you are wondering...good for 30 days! But I have only 7 days left to the wedding anyway...), and I must say, it is waaaaay more user-friendly than Premiere that I used to play around with.

So that is what I have been doing with my time, aside from a couple of Magic sessions, one short mahjong session, typing tutor comments for students, preparing some forms for students who are applying for scholarships or placements in overseas universities, settling some IT committee backend business, and etc.

A few noteworthy finds so far during preparation: Daniel Yam has very nice dresses at prices that are actually affordable. From my observations so far, the price ranges from about 70 to 120, which is not expensive for dresses and gowns meant for more formal occasions. Surprisingly I always had the impression that it had to be beastly expensive. So I wonder if they did a good job with branding (that I think it is so high class) or a bad job (too expensive to be worth walking into). There is this shop in Chinatown that specializes entirely in Chinese wedding stuff. They have all the big big 喜words, baskets and containers of all sorts (for bringing bridal gifts to bride's house), decorations, dragon & phoenix candles, and all the old customary things to scatter on the bed/around the house/have around. A must-visit place if one or more of the parents insist on at least one or more of the old-fashioned customs.

The biggest thing that happened, I guess, occured today when my fiancee bought three hamsters and one uber-cool looking cage for them. Winterwhite Pearls. Really cute, at one month old. Honestly, I never thought that at some point I would be taking care of pets; when I was younger, I resisted the idea because I thought I was too lazy to take good care, and did not want the moral guilt of having caused the death of some poor little things. So I always played with stray cats and dogs instead. Now that these little animals are in my living room, I feel the sense of responsibility that I think may be absent had I been younger of age. I guess it is apparent to me why there are so many abandoned pets out there.