Sunday, March 30, 2008
Hmm the previous post was the 888th post of the blog! Woohoo! Didn't know I've blogged this much already. I think I'm the only one left still blogging out of all my friends who started around the same time.
Mon 24 Mar
Monday is the longest day of the week for me, especially since it starts first period in the day, and ends last period of the day, and inbetween, I cover almost half of my whole week's teaching load. Essentially, I almost lose my voice every end of the day. Thankfully I at least have a short break between lessons, and there's no back-to-back three periods, so there is room to breathe.
Tue 25 Mar
Finally, a true short day, but even then, I hung around to complete work till about 3 pm. My wife had lessons that end late, and had an event at night to attend, so I took the chance to run some errands, for instance, collecting some of her clothes sent for alteration, sending my watch for repair of its strap, collecting some voucher from Tangs, and etc.
Wed 26 Mar
After lessons were over, a few of us had to attend the Quickr course carried on from last Wed while the rest of the staff went for first aid course. By the time we were done, it was 6 plus in the evening. I do think that these days I'm spending much longer hours in school. Somehow the timetable and other events conspired together to keep me there.
Thu 27 Mar
What a long day today was! Other than it ending late, I still had a meeting after school to attend, followed by cell group. My poor wife fell sick again, and so was not in school. However, on her way back from seeing the gynae (to get medicine of proper and safe dosage), she stopped by Bedok to eat lunch, and my colleagues and I headed down to find her to grab some good food. I introduced them to the excellent avocado milkshake at the 216 market, and we had one satisfying lunch before heading back to school.
Surprisingly, the meeting that I anticipated to be long turned out to end on time, and I had enough time to head down to my wife's parents' place for dinner before heading down to cell group. As usual, waiting for 197 at City Hall around 7 plus was a nightmare, because I waited about 22 minutes for the bus yet again. How many times must I go through this before I will learn the lesson of walking a little further to take 961 instead, which showed up twice before 197 ever did.
Fri 28 Mar
It was a long day today in which I cleared some work before heading down to Teachers' Network with my colleagues. My wife was still on MC today for her flu though, so it was just the three of us. When we went there, we found that the classroom door was still locked, and we headed off to the library (where there was aircon) to wait. We were about to run off when we saw that someone came to open the door. Mistaking that for the arrival of the lecturer, we headed to the classroom only to wait some more. Apparently due to some miscommunication between this guest lecturer and our usual boring fellow, the guest lecturer thought that the course started at 6 pm rather than 4 pm, and arrived at 5.15 pm after rushing down in a mad hurry. I use the word 'mad' because both meanings of the word apply in this case. It looked like we found yet another person who disliked the main lecturer.
Sat 29 Mar
I woke up earlier today than usual Saturdays to head down to Guang Ming Shan (Brighthill) to "visit" my father's urn. This is a necessary annual pilgrimage to display my filial piety. I say this in a cynical tone only for the reason that I somehow feel obliged to do it, even though I don't believe there is any value in doing so. Not because I don't feel filial towards my parents, but more because now that I am a Christian, I wonder what worth is there standing in front of my father's urn and telling him things. Other than the air pollution that all the burning must surely cause, I find some things that my mother and aunt said extremely odd.
My mum was planning to buy some Afterlife Real Estate, i.e. reserve a place for the urn. There was one spot directly opposite my father's urn, so she wanted to buy that spot in advance, so that they can look at each other. Barring my Christian beliefs, trying to imagine their ghosts at their urn was a stretch of credulity in itself. Since the whole place is essentially shelves of urns, assuming that ghosts are discrete and separate and cannot overlap each other, then the ghosts must be smaller than the size of an urn right? If they can overlap each other, then it will be one confusing sight if it were possible to see it. My second aunt was keeping a lookout for urn places for my third aunt in advance as well, and she was insisting on finding something nearer the front row, for the reason that if the urn is at the back, then the ghost would be blocked and can't come out roaming freely. The thing I find most odd these days is that people are burning paper handphones to the deceased. I wonder then who they are going to call...? And if anyone had burnt down a satelite and local signal stations, and is there some SingHell network or something down there.
I think I'm too logical to be superstitious. Even my faith in God is accompanied by some form of logic still actually.
Sun 30 Mar
I woke up feeling quite sick with a blocked nose and a sore throat. Sigh. I think finally I have gotten struck by flu. I went to service as usual, taking joy in that I can still jump around praising God. After service, I had a combined cell group (my boys and G12 brother Collin's boys) at my house after we grabbed some food at White Sands first. That was a good session together, if not for the fact that we each had one of our boys absent. I had a good talk with one of my boys as well, and I thank God that my boys are willing to share personal things with me. As a spiritual father, that would be one of the most comforting things to know.
I think teaching is one of the few professions where you actually feel compelled to go to work despite being sick. One reason is a feeling of responsibility towards the students, that your absence would somehow be detrimental, but as time goes by, I do recognize that I'm not indispensable. But the main thing is a responsibility to colleagues. In the corporate world, if you aren't there, your work just piles up and awaits your return. But in teaching, if you are absent, someone else must cover your class for you, because students' time is most precious, and can't be wasted. It is more the latter reason that I think most teachers will still go to school even if they are sick, because they don't want to lengthen the already long days of their colleagues.
Mon 24 Mar
Monday is the longest day of the week for me, especially since it starts first period in the day, and ends last period of the day, and inbetween, I cover almost half of my whole week's teaching load. Essentially, I almost lose my voice every end of the day. Thankfully I at least have a short break between lessons, and there's no back-to-back three periods, so there is room to breathe.
Tue 25 Mar
Finally, a true short day, but even then, I hung around to complete work till about 3 pm. My wife had lessons that end late, and had an event at night to attend, so I took the chance to run some errands, for instance, collecting some of her clothes sent for alteration, sending my watch for repair of its strap, collecting some voucher from Tangs, and etc.
Wed 26 Mar
After lessons were over, a few of us had to attend the Quickr course carried on from last Wed while the rest of the staff went for first aid course. By the time we were done, it was 6 plus in the evening. I do think that these days I'm spending much longer hours in school. Somehow the timetable and other events conspired together to keep me there.
Thu 27 Mar
What a long day today was! Other than it ending late, I still had a meeting after school to attend, followed by cell group. My poor wife fell sick again, and so was not in school. However, on her way back from seeing the gynae (to get medicine of proper and safe dosage), she stopped by Bedok to eat lunch, and my colleagues and I headed down to find her to grab some good food. I introduced them to the excellent avocado milkshake at the 216 market, and we had one satisfying lunch before heading back to school.
Surprisingly, the meeting that I anticipated to be long turned out to end on time, and I had enough time to head down to my wife's parents' place for dinner before heading down to cell group. As usual, waiting for 197 at City Hall around 7 plus was a nightmare, because I waited about 22 minutes for the bus yet again. How many times must I go through this before I will learn the lesson of walking a little further to take 961 instead, which showed up twice before 197 ever did.
Fri 28 Mar
It was a long day today in which I cleared some work before heading down to Teachers' Network with my colleagues. My wife was still on MC today for her flu though, so it was just the three of us. When we went there, we found that the classroom door was still locked, and we headed off to the library (where there was aircon) to wait. We were about to run off when we saw that someone came to open the door. Mistaking that for the arrival of the lecturer, we headed to the classroom only to wait some more. Apparently due to some miscommunication between this guest lecturer and our usual boring fellow, the guest lecturer thought that the course started at 6 pm rather than 4 pm, and arrived at 5.15 pm after rushing down in a mad hurry. I use the word 'mad' because both meanings of the word apply in this case. It looked like we found yet another person who disliked the main lecturer.
Sat 29 Mar
I woke up earlier today than usual Saturdays to head down to Guang Ming Shan (Brighthill) to "visit" my father's urn. This is a necessary annual pilgrimage to display my filial piety. I say this in a cynical tone only for the reason that I somehow feel obliged to do it, even though I don't believe there is any value in doing so. Not because I don't feel filial towards my parents, but more because now that I am a Christian, I wonder what worth is there standing in front of my father's urn and telling him things. Other than the air pollution that all the burning must surely cause, I find some things that my mother and aunt said extremely odd.
My mum was planning to buy some Afterlife Real Estate, i.e. reserve a place for the urn. There was one spot directly opposite my father's urn, so she wanted to buy that spot in advance, so that they can look at each other. Barring my Christian beliefs, trying to imagine their ghosts at their urn was a stretch of credulity in itself. Since the whole place is essentially shelves of urns, assuming that ghosts are discrete and separate and cannot overlap each other, then the ghosts must be smaller than the size of an urn right? If they can overlap each other, then it will be one confusing sight if it were possible to see it. My second aunt was keeping a lookout for urn places for my third aunt in advance as well, and she was insisting on finding something nearer the front row, for the reason that if the urn is at the back, then the ghost would be blocked and can't come out roaming freely. The thing I find most odd these days is that people are burning paper handphones to the deceased. I wonder then who they are going to call...? And if anyone had burnt down a satelite and local signal stations, and is there some SingHell network or something down there.
I think I'm too logical to be superstitious. Even my faith in God is accompanied by some form of logic still actually.
Sun 30 Mar
I woke up feeling quite sick with a blocked nose and a sore throat. Sigh. I think finally I have gotten struck by flu. I went to service as usual, taking joy in that I can still jump around praising God. After service, I had a combined cell group (my boys and G12 brother Collin's boys) at my house after we grabbed some food at White Sands first. That was a good session together, if not for the fact that we each had one of our boys absent. I had a good talk with one of my boys as well, and I thank God that my boys are willing to share personal things with me. As a spiritual father, that would be one of the most comforting things to know.
I think teaching is one of the few professions where you actually feel compelled to go to work despite being sick. One reason is a feeling of responsibility towards the students, that your absence would somehow be detrimental, but as time goes by, I do recognize that I'm not indispensable. But the main thing is a responsibility to colleagues. In the corporate world, if you aren't there, your work just piles up and awaits your return. But in teaching, if you are absent, someone else must cover your class for you, because students' time is most precious, and can't be wasted. It is more the latter reason that I think most teachers will still go to school even if they are sick, because they don't want to lengthen the already long days of their colleagues.
posted by MadPoet : 11:49 PM Sunday, March 23, 2008
Sun 16 Mar
I went to service as usual, and had cell group after service. These days the sermons really pack quite a punch, and it always feels like the rhema Word of God resonates with what I myself am hearing from God.
Mon 17 Mar
A half-day was declared during morning assembly in celebration of the hard work for last year's 'A' level results. My wife and I immediately seized this opportunity to go out, since time is a precious luxury these days. We went down to Bugis to do some shopping, and I ended up buying two shirts from Freshbox and a polo-tee from =1 Collection, on account of the sale going on there. We also caught a movie, Spiderwick Chronicles, which I wanted to watch on account of an excellent review from my most trusted movie-review site ChristianityToday.com.
The show started off with some degree of creepiness, much like a horror flick (but it isn't), and mysterious things start happening in a mysterious house, and the main characters start to discover a magical world with goblins, hobgoblins, faeries and all in the very realm around them, and one big bad ogre trying to rule by killing every other magical creature. I think the most intriguing thing about this movie was how the ordinary folks put up a believable resistance against the villains, armed with some useful lore of course (e.g. ketchup burns the flesh of goblins), and the big bad ogre was disposed of in an intelligent manner befitting of ordinary humans battling a powerful monstrosity, turning one of its powers into an Archille's heel. Personally I found this more enjoyable than Narnia, which I use as comparison because both involve young children discovering accidentally a magical world.
Tue 18 Mar
I finished school earlier than my wife today, after clearing a ton of marking and administrative work, and I went for a haircut at Hair de Vogue. I had a long wait because my hairdresser was still attending to another customer, so by the time I was done, my wife was already waiting for me to go for dinner.
We went to Pizza Hut where we tried to use the Citibank voucher again, but we failed once more. However this time round the manager seemed more knowledgeable and explained to us in great detail why the Citibank voucher was an exception. After calling through the Citibank Rewards hotline at last, I finally figured out the whole thing. Apparently, with the exception of just a couple of vendors (Pizza Hut being one of them), Citibank somehow does not have a tie-in with them where their rewards voucher could be used directly. In such cases, the actual voucher need to be redeemed at their main office at Tangs with the 'rewards voucher'. Goodness, do they think consumers are that free to travel down to Orchard just to redeem vouchers? If I knew it would be this troublesome I would have opted to redeem something else with my points. The lack of information on the bank's part, and the exclusive uncooperativeness of those vendors, is sorely frustrating.
Wed 19 Mar
It was yet another long day, with a staff conference in the mid afternoon, and a training course for a new software that took till evening. This time round the person conducting the course was a more interesting fella, so it wasn't too draining. I wonder how many training courses and meetings I had already gone for so far...it felt like...a lot.
Thu 20 Mar
I had nasi lemak for breakfast in the morning, and had my lessons as usual. I went out for lunch with my wife and colleagues, and we drove down to Old Airport Rd. I tried some minced fish meat noodles that was not bad, but the most important find was the Sweet Stone Parad'Ice franchise branch there. Interestingly enough, I wanted to ask my colleagues to go to Beach Rd to eat that, so finding a branch there was just perfect. The weird thing was that I was really full after the waffle and the noodles earlier, which was unnatural. In fact, my stomach felt funny even before we headed off for lunch.
By the time I went for my last lesson, I almost puked, but I thought maybe I overate or something. Only when I got home I was hit by vomitting and diarrhoea twice each. The vomitting was full of stomach acid which burnt my throat, and I saw blood in my spit after both times of vomitting. The irony was that today was the only day my wife didn't vomit from morning sickness.
Today was actually Day 1 of the Week of Sanctification in my church, but I was in no condition to go. Sigh.
Fri 21 Mar
Today was Day 2 of the Week of Sanctification. I was feeling somewhat better, having recovered some appetite and not feeling nauseous or stomach upsets. However, yesterday's ailment made me able to empathize with what my poor wife has been going through the whole week, and I took it upon myself to tidy up the house and do quite a lot of chores while she was quietly resting.
Interestingly enough, today's message from Senior Pastor was about marriages, and during his message, he placed the responsibility of success of marriages on the men, and also urged them to help the wives do housework to use action rather than words to show love. I guess God had prepared me beforehand once again, as He often likes to do.
An aside: I think Sakae Sushi's udon soup base now is quite bad. I'm not sure if it was just the outlet at White Sands, but when the udon was served, the soup tasted like plain water with the taste of spring onions. My wife asked for the udon to be changed twice (that's how bad it was, because she wouldn't like to make trouble), and still it was dilute - just saltier. One of the chefs came to explain that it used to be donburi soup base, but now they changed to some other soup base during the last change of menu. Well, to be fair, the service was good that they bothered to explain and offered a change of food item for my wife, but I think we wouldn't eat udon again.
Or maybe just one more time at another outlet to see if they really did change soup base across the outlets. Hmm...
The 40-day fast was over today, so my Xbox 360 controller finally saw the light of day again!
Sat 22 Mar
Today was Day 3 of the Week of Sanctification. I went down first to Bugis with my wife to meet some friends for an early dinner, which, considering the busyness of everyone, was a rare reunion. After that, we headed down to Expo to catch Senior Pastor's sharing. Today's session was jarring in that Ps Khong said some really heartfelt sentiments which to me could have only come from a humble man, but more importantly, what he shared was an important revelation of God for the church.
Sun 23 Mar
I went to Expo with my wife earlier to take a look at the baby fair. After a while of walking around, we got ourselves a free steamer (the kind that can iron clothes, sterilize upholstery and stuff), and I bought a Combi stroller in advance, since there was a 10% discount. I never realized that a good stroller could cost this much ($365), and this was only midrange compared to some others there.
After service, I went to Eastpoint with my boys for cell group, and today, amazingly enough, they all shared a lot of personal things, so it was good family time. I hope every cell group would be this personal and candid.
I was watching the S-Pop Hurray, realizing that I must be one of the "old-fogeys" to recognize the songs and like them. One thing I noticed: Elva Hsiao's nose look a little too hooked. I wonder if she did anything cosmetic to her nose. This kind of stuff usually doesn't bother me, but I've always regarded her as one of the babes of the music industry, so if someone with her appearance could have gone for plastic surgery, I cannot imagine for what reason.
I went to service as usual, and had cell group after service. These days the sermons really pack quite a punch, and it always feels like the rhema Word of God resonates with what I myself am hearing from God.
Mon 17 Mar
A half-day was declared during morning assembly in celebration of the hard work for last year's 'A' level results. My wife and I immediately seized this opportunity to go out, since time is a precious luxury these days. We went down to Bugis to do some shopping, and I ended up buying two shirts from Freshbox and a polo-tee from =1 Collection, on account of the sale going on there. We also caught a movie, Spiderwick Chronicles, which I wanted to watch on account of an excellent review from my most trusted movie-review site ChristianityToday.com.
The show started off with some degree of creepiness, much like a horror flick (but it isn't), and mysterious things start happening in a mysterious house, and the main characters start to discover a magical world with goblins, hobgoblins, faeries and all in the very realm around them, and one big bad ogre trying to rule by killing every other magical creature. I think the most intriguing thing about this movie was how the ordinary folks put up a believable resistance against the villains, armed with some useful lore of course (e.g. ketchup burns the flesh of goblins), and the big bad ogre was disposed of in an intelligent manner befitting of ordinary humans battling a powerful monstrosity, turning one of its powers into an Archille's heel. Personally I found this more enjoyable than Narnia, which I use as comparison because both involve young children discovering accidentally a magical world.
Tue 18 Mar
I finished school earlier than my wife today, after clearing a ton of marking and administrative work, and I went for a haircut at Hair de Vogue. I had a long wait because my hairdresser was still attending to another customer, so by the time I was done, my wife was already waiting for me to go for dinner.
We went to Pizza Hut where we tried to use the Citibank voucher again, but we failed once more. However this time round the manager seemed more knowledgeable and explained to us in great detail why the Citibank voucher was an exception. After calling through the Citibank Rewards hotline at last, I finally figured out the whole thing. Apparently, with the exception of just a couple of vendors (Pizza Hut being one of them), Citibank somehow does not have a tie-in with them where their rewards voucher could be used directly. In such cases, the actual voucher need to be redeemed at their main office at Tangs with the 'rewards voucher'. Goodness, do they think consumers are that free to travel down to Orchard just to redeem vouchers? If I knew it would be this troublesome I would have opted to redeem something else with my points. The lack of information on the bank's part, and the exclusive uncooperativeness of those vendors, is sorely frustrating.
Wed 19 Mar
It was yet another long day, with a staff conference in the mid afternoon, and a training course for a new software that took till evening. This time round the person conducting the course was a more interesting fella, so it wasn't too draining. I wonder how many training courses and meetings I had already gone for so far...it felt like...a lot.
Thu 20 Mar
I had nasi lemak for breakfast in the morning, and had my lessons as usual. I went out for lunch with my wife and colleagues, and we drove down to Old Airport Rd. I tried some minced fish meat noodles that was not bad, but the most important find was the Sweet Stone Parad'Ice franchise branch there. Interestingly enough, I wanted to ask my colleagues to go to Beach Rd to eat that, so finding a branch there was just perfect. The weird thing was that I was really full after the waffle and the noodles earlier, which was unnatural. In fact, my stomach felt funny even before we headed off for lunch.
By the time I went for my last lesson, I almost puked, but I thought maybe I overate or something. Only when I got home I was hit by vomitting and diarrhoea twice each. The vomitting was full of stomach acid which burnt my throat, and I saw blood in my spit after both times of vomitting. The irony was that today was the only day my wife didn't vomit from morning sickness.
Today was actually Day 1 of the Week of Sanctification in my church, but I was in no condition to go. Sigh.
Fri 21 Mar
Today was Day 2 of the Week of Sanctification. I was feeling somewhat better, having recovered some appetite and not feeling nauseous or stomach upsets. However, yesterday's ailment made me able to empathize with what my poor wife has been going through the whole week, and I took it upon myself to tidy up the house and do quite a lot of chores while she was quietly resting.
Interestingly enough, today's message from Senior Pastor was about marriages, and during his message, he placed the responsibility of success of marriages on the men, and also urged them to help the wives do housework to use action rather than words to show love. I guess God had prepared me beforehand once again, as He often likes to do.
An aside: I think Sakae Sushi's udon soup base now is quite bad. I'm not sure if it was just the outlet at White Sands, but when the udon was served, the soup tasted like plain water with the taste of spring onions. My wife asked for the udon to be changed twice (that's how bad it was, because she wouldn't like to make trouble), and still it was dilute - just saltier. One of the chefs came to explain that it used to be donburi soup base, but now they changed to some other soup base during the last change of menu. Well, to be fair, the service was good that they bothered to explain and offered a change of food item for my wife, but I think we wouldn't eat udon again.
Or maybe just one more time at another outlet to see if they really did change soup base across the outlets. Hmm...
The 40-day fast was over today, so my Xbox 360 controller finally saw the light of day again!
Sat 22 Mar
Today was Day 3 of the Week of Sanctification. I went down first to Bugis with my wife to meet some friends for an early dinner, which, considering the busyness of everyone, was a rare reunion. After that, we headed down to Expo to catch Senior Pastor's sharing. Today's session was jarring in that Ps Khong said some really heartfelt sentiments which to me could have only come from a humble man, but more importantly, what he shared was an important revelation of God for the church.
Sun 23 Mar
I went to Expo with my wife earlier to take a look at the baby fair. After a while of walking around, we got ourselves a free steamer (the kind that can iron clothes, sterilize upholstery and stuff), and I bought a Combi stroller in advance, since there was a 10% discount. I never realized that a good stroller could cost this much ($365), and this was only midrange compared to some others there.
After service, I went to Eastpoint with my boys for cell group, and today, amazingly enough, they all shared a lot of personal things, so it was good family time. I hope every cell group would be this personal and candid.
I was watching the S-Pop Hurray, realizing that I must be one of the "old-fogeys" to recognize the songs and like them. One thing I noticed: Elva Hsiao's nose look a little too hooked. I wonder if she did anything cosmetic to her nose. This kind of stuff usually doesn't bother me, but I've always regarded her as one of the babes of the music industry, so if someone with her appearance could have gone for plastic surgery, I cannot imagine for what reason.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Sun 9 Mar
I couldn't go to service because we had to check in at around 10+ am. My wife came to send me off after service, and she had to leave before service ended to be on time. We took a SIA flight over to KL's airport, and took an hour journey by mini-van over to Multiara Crown Plaza Hotel where we were going to stay for the next four nights. I wasn't quite expecting this quality, but it is a five-star hotel. I was prepared to share a room with Simon, my HOD, since we were the only two from our school, but the five of us on the team were all given separate rooms. Ivan, the only guy from MOE HQ volunteered to take the furthest room. Simon and I took opposite rooms, and the two ladies from Townsville Primary School, Lily and Suzana took opposite rooms at the far end of the corridor.
The room was really nice! It had an open concept for the bathroom, and there were sliding louvre doors that allowed you to watch TV from the bathtub! Here's a shot of the beds and the toilet. The bathtub is just behind the wall where the two sliding doors are.
The shower area had a normal shower head as well as the overhead rainshower (not sure what exactly it is called). Shiok!
In the evening, we brought all the posters over to KLCC to set up at the booth, and ate dinner at the Kenny Rogers in the food court at the basement. Frankly, the food wasn't good, or at least the outlet at Suntec is better by a long mile. We had ice cream from New Zealand Natural, and called it a day.
Mon 10 Mar
We thought today would be the first day, but it was actually meant for setting up. The conference would officially begin only tomorrow, but the exhibition began first anyway and there were some visitors who strolled in, many of whom looked like they were actually on their way to Suria KLCC and just poked their noses in out of curiosity. We had students visit our booth, so we entertained them with a cartesian diver experiment which really fascinated them. We had some technical difficulties with the power supply at one point, and the wireless fairly often, but those were eventually remedied.
For lunch, Simon and I went to this place called Sushi King at Suria KLCC because we felt like eating Japanese food, and there was quite a crowd in there. The food sucked. Big time. And it wasn't cheap, costing us about $20 SGD each with pathetic portions. For instance, my salmon sashimi was pathetic. Imagine a Sakae Sushi red plate. Now take two pieces of sashimi from that plate, slice it into three paper thin slices. Eat one yourself, and put the remaining five on the plate and serve. Yup, that was the sashimi portion. We were quite disgusted with the lunch, so we went to eat the delicious New Zealand Natural ice cream again.
After packing up, dropping off our laptops and changing, the five of us headed down to KLCC again to shop. I couldn't find anything there cheap enough to be a bargain and bought a t-shirt only. We ate dinner at The Manhattan Fish Market, which costed the same price as Singapore, only in ringgit! So that was practically half price. And the food was so much better than the outlet in Singapore, and I ate till I was bursting at the seams of my three-quarts.
Tue 11 Mar
It was the official first day of the exhibition! After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we headed down to KLCC to start the day. Today was a busy day with many visitors almost all the way from 9 to 6 pm. We spoke to educators, Ministry of Education (Malaysia) people, parents, curious passers-by, and even the Minister of Education of Malaysia himself. I must say that he is one charismatic person, with a winning smile and a certain charm, and wacky humour. He came by our booth, asked us how we were doing, and to my utter shock, the conversation veered off to this, with the news reporters right beside him (non-verbatim):
Minister: I heard your Minister of Education is leaving. Do you know who is taking over him?
Us (clueless): No...
Minister: I heard the news that he was leaving and gave your Prime Minister a call to tell him not to let Tharman go until after the conference. I think it worked because he is coming over later!
Seriously, I wasn't expecting the minister to crack a joke with us, much less do it with the reporters in tow. He is one cool fella.
For lunch, we went over to Suria KLCC to hunt for Madam Kwan's, which my colleague kept recommending to me before the holidays. We took her recommendation and ordered the chicken curry, char kway teow and kailan in oyster sauce. I think the curry is the best I have ever eaten! The gravy was thick and delicious, and spicy enough to be tasty without wrecking the tastebuds. The chicken was tender and succulent, even the breastmeat, and the kway teow was unique in taste, and it reminded me of this dish called Crystal Hor Fun that I used to eat a long time ago. The food was excellent, and the mango juice I ordered was pure mango blended. It was so viscous that the water from the melted ice just floats at the top and can't mix. And the whole meal costs about $10+ SGD. I love eating in Malaysia. Every meal feels really affordable.
We talked with many visitors at our booth, ranging from teachers to high-ups in the Malaysian MOE. We had a dean of a university talk to us as well. It was quite educational for me to be here actually, and we met many people who were passionate about teaching, about using technology in education, about wanting to see reform and change in the education scene in Malaysia. I made a friend there as well named Sean, who is an exhibitor. He is another person passionate about seeing change in his country, and we talked for close to 40 min when he came to my booth, and another hour when I went over to his booth. He was friendly enough to end up befriending a few of us actually, and we told him he could look us up when he comes to Singapore for work or play.
We went to Sungei Wang in the evening to have a walk around. Simon brought Ivan and me to this noodle house place that served good Chinese food like roast pork, char siew, and etc. We went around shopping together. I bought a polo-tee there, and a couple of anime titles at Hong Kong Video. The saleslady at the counter insisted on giving me a membership card despite me telling her that I wasn't local, and I took it because overall I still saved 4 ringgit. Simon bought a couple of movie DVDs as well, so the card proved useful. At 9 plus, the two ladies rang Ivan up to tell us that they found a decent foot reflexology place, and asked us to join them.
After standing around most of the time from 9 to 6 pm, a good foot massage was a godsend. We went there, and the place was quite cosy for all five of us. The workers were aunties and one Malay man. The one massaging my foot was an auntie who looked quite old but had really strong hands, and she practically used all her strength. Good thing I had been to foot massages before and could take it, but on hindsight, I think they weren't qualified reflexologists. I could tell the difference. In any case, the massage was important for our sole heels. Only on returning did we realize that there were many more parlours along the way, and the rest all had skimpily-clad women touting. Hmm...
I couldn't go to service because we had to check in at around 10+ am. My wife came to send me off after service, and she had to leave before service ended to be on time. We took a SIA flight over to KL's airport, and took an hour journey by mini-van over to Multiara Crown Plaza Hotel where we were going to stay for the next four nights. I wasn't quite expecting this quality, but it is a five-star hotel. I was prepared to share a room with Simon, my HOD, since we were the only two from our school, but the five of us on the team were all given separate rooms. Ivan, the only guy from MOE HQ volunteered to take the furthest room. Simon and I took opposite rooms, and the two ladies from Townsville Primary School, Lily and Suzana took opposite rooms at the far end of the corridor.
The room was really nice! It had an open concept for the bathroom, and there were sliding louvre doors that allowed you to watch TV from the bathtub! Here's a shot of the beds and the toilet. The bathtub is just behind the wall where the two sliding doors are.
The shower area had a normal shower head as well as the overhead rainshower (not sure what exactly it is called). Shiok!
In the evening, we brought all the posters over to KLCC to set up at the booth, and ate dinner at the Kenny Rogers in the food court at the basement. Frankly, the food wasn't good, or at least the outlet at Suntec is better by a long mile. We had ice cream from New Zealand Natural, and called it a day.
Mon 10 Mar
We thought today would be the first day, but it was actually meant for setting up. The conference would officially begin only tomorrow, but the exhibition began first anyway and there were some visitors who strolled in, many of whom looked like they were actually on their way to Suria KLCC and just poked their noses in out of curiosity. We had students visit our booth, so we entertained them with a cartesian diver experiment which really fascinated them. We had some technical difficulties with the power supply at one point, and the wireless fairly often, but those were eventually remedied.
For lunch, Simon and I went to this place called Sushi King at Suria KLCC because we felt like eating Japanese food, and there was quite a crowd in there. The food sucked. Big time. And it wasn't cheap, costing us about $20 SGD each with pathetic portions. For instance, my salmon sashimi was pathetic. Imagine a Sakae Sushi red plate. Now take two pieces of sashimi from that plate, slice it into three paper thin slices. Eat one yourself, and put the remaining five on the plate and serve. Yup, that was the sashimi portion. We were quite disgusted with the lunch, so we went to eat the delicious New Zealand Natural ice cream again.
After packing up, dropping off our laptops and changing, the five of us headed down to KLCC again to shop. I couldn't find anything there cheap enough to be a bargain and bought a t-shirt only. We ate dinner at The Manhattan Fish Market, which costed the same price as Singapore, only in ringgit! So that was practically half price. And the food was so much better than the outlet in Singapore, and I ate till I was bursting at the seams of my three-quarts.
Tue 11 Mar
It was the official first day of the exhibition! After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we headed down to KLCC to start the day. Today was a busy day with many visitors almost all the way from 9 to 6 pm. We spoke to educators, Ministry of Education (Malaysia) people, parents, curious passers-by, and even the Minister of Education of Malaysia himself. I must say that he is one charismatic person, with a winning smile and a certain charm, and wacky humour. He came by our booth, asked us how we were doing, and to my utter shock, the conversation veered off to this, with the news reporters right beside him (non-verbatim):
Minister: I heard your Minister of Education is leaving. Do you know who is taking over him?
Us (clueless): No...
Minister: I heard the news that he was leaving and gave your Prime Minister a call to tell him not to let Tharman go until after the conference. I think it worked because he is coming over later!
Seriously, I wasn't expecting the minister to crack a joke with us, much less do it with the reporters in tow. He is one cool fella.
For lunch, we went over to Suria KLCC to hunt for Madam Kwan's, which my colleague kept recommending to me before the holidays. We took her recommendation and ordered the chicken curry, char kway teow and kailan in oyster sauce. I think the curry is the best I have ever eaten! The gravy was thick and delicious, and spicy enough to be tasty without wrecking the tastebuds. The chicken was tender and succulent, even the breastmeat, and the kway teow was unique in taste, and it reminded me of this dish called Crystal Hor Fun that I used to eat a long time ago. The food was excellent, and the mango juice I ordered was pure mango blended. It was so viscous that the water from the melted ice just floats at the top and can't mix. And the whole meal costs about $10+ SGD. I love eating in Malaysia. Every meal feels really affordable.
We talked with many visitors at our booth, ranging from teachers to high-ups in the Malaysian MOE. We had a dean of a university talk to us as well. It was quite educational for me to be here actually, and we met many people who were passionate about teaching, about using technology in education, about wanting to see reform and change in the education scene in Malaysia. I made a friend there as well named Sean, who is an exhibitor. He is another person passionate about seeing change in his country, and we talked for close to 40 min when he came to my booth, and another hour when I went over to his booth. He was friendly enough to end up befriending a few of us actually, and we told him he could look us up when he comes to Singapore for work or play.
We went to Sungei Wang in the evening to have a walk around. Simon brought Ivan and me to this noodle house place that served good Chinese food like roast pork, char siew, and etc. We went around shopping together. I bought a polo-tee there, and a couple of anime titles at Hong Kong Video. The saleslady at the counter insisted on giving me a membership card despite me telling her that I wasn't local, and I took it because overall I still saved 4 ringgit. Simon bought a couple of movie DVDs as well, so the card proved useful. At 9 plus, the two ladies rang Ivan up to tell us that they found a decent foot reflexology place, and asked us to join them.
After standing around most of the time from 9 to 6 pm, a good foot massage was a godsend. We went there, and the place was quite cosy for all five of us. The workers were aunties and one Malay man. The one massaging my foot was an auntie who looked quite old but had really strong hands, and she practically used all her strength. Good thing I had been to foot massages before and could take it, but on hindsight, I think they weren't qualified reflexologists. I could tell the difference. In any case, the massage was important for our sole heels. Only on returning did we realize that there were many more parlours along the way, and the rest all had skimpily-clad women touting. Hmm...
Wed 12 Mar
Last day of the exhibition! Today the turnout was even smaller than yesterday's, although there were still peak periods and other Our own Permanent Secretary (in case you don't know what that post means, it's just one rung below the Minister of Education) from Singapore came down to visit our booth, and she was really interesting to talk to. She had visited TJC once last year, and held a candid dialogue with the tutors, and I think she has a good sense of humour. I thought the really sweet thing was that her husband and three kids were with her on the trip, and to me, it is always a nice thing to see the human and personable side of people of higher authority than myself, because it is very easy for us to lose sight of that in the light of their positions. Here's a shot of our photo together with Perm Sec.
Simon, Ivan and I headed down to Madam Kwan's for lunch again, because we did not want to risk eating a lousy meal. The food was really top notch, and I would certainly go there again if I go to KL once more.
By 4 pm most of the exhibitors started packing up, and there were few visitors by then, so we followed suit. However, we stayed through till 6 pm when the whole thing was officially over before we headed back to the hotel, changed and came back out again.
We went down to Pavilion to take a look, and checked out the basement toilet of Starhill, which Sean had recommended. Starhill was really cool. The floors were not labelled by number, but by name and theme. So the floor Indulgence had all the spas and beauty parlours, for instance. The toilet was dim, with cubicles that seem built into the walls. The washing area had an attendant, and the water taps was operated by means of a giant water pump, which the attendant will work for you. High class chic stuff. At the end of the day, we wandered down to Sungei Wang again. We ate at this Portugese restaurant named Nandos, which had somewhat similar style of menu as Kenny Rogers (quarter chicken plus two side dishes), except that there was four different degrees of spiciness. We all ended up at Hong Kong Video once more where I spent the last of my ringgit on a few anime titles, and the rest of the team bought various items as well. I told the same guy who served me yesterday that it was a wise move to give me the membership card nonetheless.
Thu 13 Mar
I woke up at 5+ in the morning to eat breakfast at 6. The schedule was to leave the hotel at 7.15 am so that we wouldn't be caught in the usual city jam during the peak hour. There were ten of us, and the hotel only arranged for one mini-van! There were only 7 seats in the van, and the guy told us to squeeze. We were obviously indignant about the stupid suggestion, considering that even without luggage, ten of us clearly couldn't fit inside. In the end, the reception said they would call for another van, but there would be a delay. Fortunately, the second group managed to make it before the flight. The driver of the van I was on was an honest man; Simon accidentally left his handphone on the van, and the driver had returned to his van, found the phone, and walked all the way back to find us to return it.
My wife came over to T3 to meet me, and Simon's wife came down to pick him up, and he graciously gave us a ride back home. That was a real blessing, because it started to rain cats and dogs (I wonder how the phrase ever came into being actually). I took a really long nap to recuperate, and in the evening, my wife and I watched Paprika on DVD. That was a deep and profound show, and it was quite hard to follow, but it was amazing to watch because I think whoever came up with the script must have had an extremely vivid imagination. Whenever I watch a Japanese anime movie, I contrast it with what Disney, Pixar and etc produce, and I still think that the latter is out to sell toys to make big bucks, and the former uses the medium to venture into what cinematics and real life actors can not easily achieve on film.
Fri 14 Mar
My wife and I headed off to Orchard in the afternoon for a short while before our Masters' tutorial which carried on inhumanely during our holidays. We went to Cineleisure first because I wanted to visit the O.D.M. boutique to get my watch strap replaced, but the shop was closed because the salesperson was at a break. We couldn't afford to wait so we left for Takashimaya where there was a baby fair. It was too rushed to check the baby fair in detail after we stopped by to grab some snacks, Korean strawberries, and ice cream, so we headed down to Teachers' Network for the course.
As usual, diem perdidi. The assessment rubrics had yet evolved one more time on the spot. We were given a lesson plan assignment to be submitted by today, which most of us did on the knowledge that it was worth 10%. Today the lecturer announced that it had been upped to 20%. Not that I would bother to change what I submitted, but it was quite frustrating to hear on principle. Then he told us that one of the things he told us to prepare (a long summary table) was no longer needed (which some had already prepared, so they were murmuring in disatisfaction), and that a big presentation we were supposed to do was no longer graded. I was so irritated at that point, and I spoke out loud, "Sir, you do realize that effort is proportional to assessment weightage right?", whereupon he replied (quite composedly), "Yes, so the presentation will depend on your intrinsic motivation". That is what many of us have none of at this moment because of how the course had went. We were all shocked that the Tuesday group, which is the Arts group, under him seemed to enjoy his lessons and claimed to have learnt much from him, according to a coursemate. Hmm my class, which is the Science group, apparently can't wait for the last lesson to arrive.
Sat 15 Mar
I accompanied my wife to see the gynae in the morning. It was a long wait at the clinic, and apparently making an appointment doesn't allow you to go in asap - you still need to wait for all the walk-ins to be done first. There was one couple who came in with their young daughter, and the father asked if they could be allowed to go in first, because his wife had a nose bleed in the morning. The receptionist just coolly said that he would need to first ask all the patients waiting. The daughter then blurted out, "Don't have. Where got?" Hmm daughter has more integrity apparently. Not bad. She has one fifth of my college's core values already.
Baby is now about 7 cm in size! Normal for a 13-week old foetus. The ultrasound scan managed to show glimpses of the ear and the face, though it is still too small to distinguish the features. It was a relief for my wife to see that the baby is fine because she had been sick for so long - sick to the point that sneezing and coughing became extremely painful because of muscle aches around the ribcage.
After that we headed down to Suntec City to Perfect Mum to alter one pair of pants that we bought, and we walked out with four more maternity tops. We then headed down to Raffles City where I was meeting friends to play Magic the Gathering. My wife was supposed to be at a tribe meeting (girls' side), but after taking the medicine from the gynae for her illness, she was so giddy and dazed that she ended up dozing off and resting at Comics Mart where I was playing. She grabbed lunch at Sushi Teh, and discovered her cousin working there, who promptly prepared a complimentary sashimi salad for her (which she couldn't eat because pregnant women should avoid raw food), so she immediately gave me a call, and I gladly went over to gobble up all the sashimi. Bwahaha. Incidentally the California handroll from Sushi Teh tasted superb!
We went to New York New York for dinner, and I went for my spaghetti alfredo with pork chop favourite. Although the spaghetti sauce is still deliciously thick and flavourful, the pork chop was disappointing. I think since the first time we went there to eat, we had not seen pork chop of identical high standard as the first time. There were two ladies seated two tables away who ordered a seafood platter for two besides the salads that each of them ordered, and throughout the dinner, I did not see them take anything from that monstrous platter, which had a cold crab and a bit of everything else. The phrase that came to mind is δΈθͺιε...
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Tue 3 Mar
My short day on Tuesday was reinstated when the new timetable came out, but unfortunately, I had a scheduled meeting at 4.30 pm! I was stuck in school all the way till then, but I decided to clear much of my work in advance in the meantime so that it wasn't a fruitless wait. Heh.
Wed 4 Mar
I had a long day in school, followed by a meeting which took a while. I was supposed to go to Leaders' Meeting with my wife, but she was so sick that we went to see a doctor instead. The doctor came 50 min late for opening time. Anyway, I think Bedok is full of aunties and uncles who cut queue. Everytime I buy food, I see it happening. My wife was first at the door, followed by a malay lady, and then a guy, and then this aunty. When the door opened, the aunty squeezed in front, went to the counter, and said she was the first one at the door! Absolute liar. My wife had lost her voice so she couldn't protest. I was outside at that point and didn't know about this till my wife told me later. In fact, the guy who was third in line wanted to cut in front of my wife, but she refused to let him. In the end, the poor malay lady who was second to arrive ended up last out of the four. My wife got 2 days MC, which would see her through till next term, but she insisted on wanting to go back to school on Fri to give the results slips to her form class.
Teaching - one of the few professions around where people willingly ignore their MCs.
Thu 5 Mar
It was a long day at school today, but I managed to get a lot of work done inbetween. At lunchtime, my colleague wanted to go for something nicer, so after asking around, three of us headed down to Old Airport Road for a meal. I went to look around, and found many, many stalls with newspaper cuttings, and other publicity that proved that they were good. I settled for fishball noodles, and followed up on it with a bowl of lor mee. After that, I still was curious enough to try the banana fritter from another stall. My colleague commented that I used bankai (lingo that only Bleach anime viewers would understand), which my colleague defines as releasing a special power to eat more food, but that I define as me needing to loosen my belt to stomach more food, so I told him that I was still at shikai.
Fri 7 Mar
It was a mad rush to school. I somehow overslept, and left the house much later, catching the 6.50 train. I had brisked-walked to the station to catch that train (two trains later than the usual one I catch), and brisked-walked to the bus stop to catch bus 12. Amazingly, I got to school about the same time as usual, and from the moment I locked my house door to the time I entered past the gate, it took 23 min. That's a new record, I must say.
I had the longest morning today as I was there in the Board Room at first period to prepare for the 'A' Level results release later in the afternoon. I have been helping to prepare the powerpoint slides with all the information on the number of 3 distinctions, 4 distinctions, and so on with a colleague every year so far, and this year it was no different, except that I have a vested interest, since I had a form class last year.
Statistically based on L1R5, my form class was officially the bottommost of the entire cohort. Based on results thus far, they also hovered around that range for internal examinations. I have been quite worried about them, and have been praying regularly for all my students, including the other chemistry class I teach. When I saw their results, I was having mixed feelings because they did improve, and I was elated, but they did not improve as miraculously as I had hoped and prayed for. Most of them did well enough to get into a university, but there were a couple of them who may not. I congratulated those who made it, and consoled those who didn't. I stayed behind after the result slips were given to talk to my students and one student's parents to advise them on university admissions, or how to go on from this point, for those who were borderline. Most importantly, I hung around to calm one of my students down because she was crying quite hysterically. I think as a form teacher, this was the most painful thing to see on results day. I tried my best to console, advise, and talk her out of her sadness, but admittedly, being a guy, I think I'm not equipped enough to handle crying females, except maybe my wife, who I know extremely well. My other chemistry class did pretty well, and not just in chemistry, so for that I'm delighted.
I wanted to forgo the Masters' tutorial since it was quite late, but one colleague insisted on going because today the lecturer was supposed to give us time to do a lesson plan assignment, which he had given very information on previously. Not wanting to miss out, I agreed to take a cab down with him. It was just the two of us as my wife was on MC and my HOD had to settle some admin stuff. The journey there costed $12+, and when we got there, the whole class was quietly doing the assignment. He really did give us time to do. In the end, he only gave about half an hour, and went on to discuss some things from the textbook he made us buy (written by himself), and made us practise some Cooperative Learning techniques. At that point, my colleague and I decided that it was more worthwhile to head back to school to join everyone for our Satay Night, and we excused ourselves, taking a cab ride back. With the peak surcharge, the cab fare hit $21. Ouch. 30+ bucks to rush to and fro something useless. And by the time we reached college, the good stuff like cheese prata was finished. I contented myself by eating the free ice cream thrice.
Sat 8 Mar
I accompanied my wife to the polyclinic at Bedok for her to do a blood test. She has fever the last few days, so the doctor advised us to get a blood test to check if anything's wrong, and whether the infection is bacterial, because he advised us not to start on antibiotics first unless it really turned out to be bacterial. We found out today that was wise, because apparently, it wasn't. The polyclinic is super crowded. When we went in, the sign says that the waiting time (to see a doctor) is about three hours! It really is a luxury to be able to afford to see a private general practitioner. Even the blood test results took about 40 minutes to come out. Man.
We headed to the 216 market for lunch, and I ate a bowl of handmade noodles and Ipoh hor fun. Again I met someone cutting queue. I think I was more upset at the lame excuse than anything else. I was behind one man whom the stall lady was taking orders, and this woman appeared behind me, and moved to stand beside me rather than behind me. I was already suspecting that she was going to cut queue. When the man finished stating his order, she straightaway ordered. I turned around, raised my hand and gave a super loud "Ooooi!" She apologized and said, "Sorry, I didn't see you." That was a total load of crap. If the man in front of me and myself were standing there without ordering, she might still mistake it that we have both ordered already. But she was there when the man in front of me was ordering, so it was painfully obvious that I haven't placed my order.
We headed back to my wife's parent's place to rest a while before going out to shop for some things I may need for my trip to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow. While passing by the coffeeshop next to the Burger King, we saw that there were people preparing at the Astons that is yet to open. Out of curiosity, I went over to ask the people there when they will open officially, and the guy at the counter said that today they would have a test run at 4 pm first time, and for two hours, everything on the selected menu would go for 80 cents.
My jaw nearly dropped. Of course, this is Astons Express, and does not have the full range of menu that the Astons at Katong has, but still, I would assume the food should be of good quality. Anyway, I was thinking that it could be a reduced portion, but either way, it sounded good. My wife and I were supposed to go back home for dinner, but I called my mum to inform her not to cook, because I thought this was too good an opportunity not to pass up.
At 3.45 pm, we were back at the coffeeshop. I went over to take a look at the menu, and the guy told me that they were ready to take orders. Haha! I was the first customer of Astons in Bedok! I asked him what steak was available (not believing still that it would really be 80 cents), and he told me they only had ribeye. That was $11.90 on the menu. I ordered that, and a soup of the day, and it really was $1.60 in total! I headed back to my table where my wife and mother-in-law (who came to join us once we told her about the promotion), and we waited to see the size of the portion.
It really was the full portion.
My wife went to order two more ribeye steaks for herself and her mother, and I quickly finished my steak and put my gastronomic prowess to use. I ordered a deep fried dory (bread-crumbed) in addition. I didn't even use bankai (explanation on lingo above) and finished the fish too. My ribeye steak, deep fried dory and soup of the day would have costed $20.30, but I paid only $2.40. Including my wife and mother-in-law's meal, we paid $4 in total for what would have costed $44.10!!! Talk about being at the right place at the right time. I was nice enough to send out a sms to students, friends and colleague at first sign that the portion was full-sized, but no one responded except three. And I don't think they came down either. Ah well, their loss. I did my duty as a friend. Heh.
The food was good! The ribeye steak was very well-prepared. My wife's medium-well steak was cooked enough to not be bloody (pregnant women should avoid raw stuff, we were told), but it was done in a way that the steak was still tender. My medium-rare was perfect, succulent and tasty. The sides were pretty good too. Between the four sets, we tried their baked potato (done to a nice fragrant perfection with generous loads of butter), mashed potato with slightly salty but delicious gravy, BBQ beans which were baked beans with some special seasoning (tasted nice but a tad too salty), coleslaw which was good enough to rival Botakjones, and salad which was pretty fresh. The fish was not bad, and it was a big slab of fish. The breaded batter was crispy and good, but the fish crumbled a little too easily. The tartar sauce leaned on the salty and sour side though. I hate to compare brand names, but since Botakjones is in the near vicinity, I think for fish and chips, I would still go to Botakjones. For steak though, both are comparable.
Man, this was the best deal I've had in a long time! Eat my fill before I venture off to KL.
My short day on Tuesday was reinstated when the new timetable came out, but unfortunately, I had a scheduled meeting at 4.30 pm! I was stuck in school all the way till then, but I decided to clear much of my work in advance in the meantime so that it wasn't a fruitless wait. Heh.
Wed 4 Mar
I had a long day in school, followed by a meeting which took a while. I was supposed to go to Leaders' Meeting with my wife, but she was so sick that we went to see a doctor instead. The doctor came 50 min late for opening time. Anyway, I think Bedok is full of aunties and uncles who cut queue. Everytime I buy food, I see it happening. My wife was first at the door, followed by a malay lady, and then a guy, and then this aunty. When the door opened, the aunty squeezed in front, went to the counter, and said she was the first one at the door! Absolute liar. My wife had lost her voice so she couldn't protest. I was outside at that point and didn't know about this till my wife told me later. In fact, the guy who was third in line wanted to cut in front of my wife, but she refused to let him. In the end, the poor malay lady who was second to arrive ended up last out of the four. My wife got 2 days MC, which would see her through till next term, but she insisted on wanting to go back to school on Fri to give the results slips to her form class.
Teaching - one of the few professions around where people willingly ignore their MCs.
Thu 5 Mar
It was a long day at school today, but I managed to get a lot of work done inbetween. At lunchtime, my colleague wanted to go for something nicer, so after asking around, three of us headed down to Old Airport Road for a meal. I went to look around, and found many, many stalls with newspaper cuttings, and other publicity that proved that they were good. I settled for fishball noodles, and followed up on it with a bowl of lor mee. After that, I still was curious enough to try the banana fritter from another stall. My colleague commented that I used bankai (lingo that only Bleach anime viewers would understand), which my colleague defines as releasing a special power to eat more food, but that I define as me needing to loosen my belt to stomach more food, so I told him that I was still at shikai.
Fri 7 Mar
It was a mad rush to school. I somehow overslept, and left the house much later, catching the 6.50 train. I had brisked-walked to the station to catch that train (two trains later than the usual one I catch), and brisked-walked to the bus stop to catch bus 12. Amazingly, I got to school about the same time as usual, and from the moment I locked my house door to the time I entered past the gate, it took 23 min. That's a new record, I must say.
I had the longest morning today as I was there in the Board Room at first period to prepare for the 'A' Level results release later in the afternoon. I have been helping to prepare the powerpoint slides with all the information on the number of 3 distinctions, 4 distinctions, and so on with a colleague every year so far, and this year it was no different, except that I have a vested interest, since I had a form class last year.
Statistically based on L1R5, my form class was officially the bottommost of the entire cohort. Based on results thus far, they also hovered around that range for internal examinations. I have been quite worried about them, and have been praying regularly for all my students, including the other chemistry class I teach. When I saw their results, I was having mixed feelings because they did improve, and I was elated, but they did not improve as miraculously as I had hoped and prayed for. Most of them did well enough to get into a university, but there were a couple of them who may not. I congratulated those who made it, and consoled those who didn't. I stayed behind after the result slips were given to talk to my students and one student's parents to advise them on university admissions, or how to go on from this point, for those who were borderline. Most importantly, I hung around to calm one of my students down because she was crying quite hysterically. I think as a form teacher, this was the most painful thing to see on results day. I tried my best to console, advise, and talk her out of her sadness, but admittedly, being a guy, I think I'm not equipped enough to handle crying females, except maybe my wife, who I know extremely well. My other chemistry class did pretty well, and not just in chemistry, so for that I'm delighted.
I wanted to forgo the Masters' tutorial since it was quite late, but one colleague insisted on going because today the lecturer was supposed to give us time to do a lesson plan assignment, which he had given very information on previously. Not wanting to miss out, I agreed to take a cab down with him. It was just the two of us as my wife was on MC and my HOD had to settle some admin stuff. The journey there costed $12+, and when we got there, the whole class was quietly doing the assignment. He really did give us time to do. In the end, he only gave about half an hour, and went on to discuss some things from the textbook he made us buy (written by himself), and made us practise some Cooperative Learning techniques. At that point, my colleague and I decided that it was more worthwhile to head back to school to join everyone for our Satay Night, and we excused ourselves, taking a cab ride back. With the peak surcharge, the cab fare hit $21. Ouch. 30+ bucks to rush to and fro something useless. And by the time we reached college, the good stuff like cheese prata was finished. I contented myself by eating the free ice cream thrice.
Sat 8 Mar
I accompanied my wife to the polyclinic at Bedok for her to do a blood test. She has fever the last few days, so the doctor advised us to get a blood test to check if anything's wrong, and whether the infection is bacterial, because he advised us not to start on antibiotics first unless it really turned out to be bacterial. We found out today that was wise, because apparently, it wasn't. The polyclinic is super crowded. When we went in, the sign says that the waiting time (to see a doctor) is about three hours! It really is a luxury to be able to afford to see a private general practitioner. Even the blood test results took about 40 minutes to come out. Man.
We headed to the 216 market for lunch, and I ate a bowl of handmade noodles and Ipoh hor fun. Again I met someone cutting queue. I think I was more upset at the lame excuse than anything else. I was behind one man whom the stall lady was taking orders, and this woman appeared behind me, and moved to stand beside me rather than behind me. I was already suspecting that she was going to cut queue. When the man finished stating his order, she straightaway ordered. I turned around, raised my hand and gave a super loud "Ooooi!" She apologized and said, "Sorry, I didn't see you." That was a total load of crap. If the man in front of me and myself were standing there without ordering, she might still mistake it that we have both ordered already. But she was there when the man in front of me was ordering, so it was painfully obvious that I haven't placed my order.
We headed back to my wife's parent's place to rest a while before going out to shop for some things I may need for my trip to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow. While passing by the coffeeshop next to the Burger King, we saw that there were people preparing at the Astons that is yet to open. Out of curiosity, I went over to ask the people there when they will open officially, and the guy at the counter said that today they would have a test run at 4 pm first time, and for two hours, everything on the selected menu would go for 80 cents.
My jaw nearly dropped. Of course, this is Astons Express, and does not have the full range of menu that the Astons at Katong has, but still, I would assume the food should be of good quality. Anyway, I was thinking that it could be a reduced portion, but either way, it sounded good. My wife and I were supposed to go back home for dinner, but I called my mum to inform her not to cook, because I thought this was too good an opportunity not to pass up.
At 3.45 pm, we were back at the coffeeshop. I went over to take a look at the menu, and the guy told me that they were ready to take orders. Haha! I was the first customer of Astons in Bedok! I asked him what steak was available (not believing still that it would really be 80 cents), and he told me they only had ribeye. That was $11.90 on the menu. I ordered that, and a soup of the day, and it really was $1.60 in total! I headed back to my table where my wife and mother-in-law (who came to join us once we told her about the promotion), and we waited to see the size of the portion.
It really was the full portion.
My wife went to order two more ribeye steaks for herself and her mother, and I quickly finished my steak and put my gastronomic prowess to use. I ordered a deep fried dory (bread-crumbed) in addition. I didn't even use bankai (explanation on lingo above) and finished the fish too. My ribeye steak, deep fried dory and soup of the day would have costed $20.30, but I paid only $2.40. Including my wife and mother-in-law's meal, we paid $4 in total for what would have costed $44.10!!! Talk about being at the right place at the right time. I was nice enough to send out a sms to students, friends and colleague at first sign that the portion was full-sized, but no one responded except three. And I don't think they came down either. Ah well, their loss. I did my duty as a friend. Heh.
The food was good! The ribeye steak was very well-prepared. My wife's medium-well steak was cooked enough to not be bloody (pregnant women should avoid raw stuff, we were told), but it was done in a way that the steak was still tender. My medium-rare was perfect, succulent and tasty. The sides were pretty good too. Between the four sets, we tried their baked potato (done to a nice fragrant perfection with generous loads of butter), mashed potato with slightly salty but delicious gravy, BBQ beans which were baked beans with some special seasoning (tasted nice but a tad too salty), coleslaw which was good enough to rival Botakjones, and salad which was pretty fresh. The fish was not bad, and it was a big slab of fish. The breaded batter was crispy and good, but the fish crumbled a little too easily. The tartar sauce leaned on the salty and sour side though. I hate to compare brand names, but since Botakjones is in the near vicinity, I think for fish and chips, I would still go to Botakjones. For steak though, both are comparable.
Man, this was the best deal I've had in a long time! Eat my fill before I venture off to KL.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Fri 29 Feb
It was a long day at school, followed by the Masters' tutorial. Now he gives us yet another assignment on top of the 3000-word essay and group presentation, and it is to write a lesson plan for how to use Cooperative Learning in class. All the students were almost up-in-arms about it, and I intend to wage war the next lesson. Provided results are not out that very same day, in which case I would gladly give the tutorial a miss for official reasons.
After the lesson, my wife and I headed down to Bedok for dinner, and we went to the rose-from-the-ashes coffeeshop to have Botakjones fish n chips, and the Il Piccolo pasta and pizza, because our colleagues were raving about the pizza that they ate for lunch. The pasta today was a bit disappointing. The penne was too tough (undercooked, I presume), and the sauce was bland. So was the pizza. I think it was because of the crowdedness of the place. Last time, the coffeeshop had only a handful of customers; now, it only has only a handful of empty seats. It is seriously amazing. I had to queue for more than 15 minutes for Botakjones, and that was somewhere at 8 plus pm, which shouldn't be the dinner peak hour. Likewise it was a long queue and wait for the pizza and pasta. However, despite the extreme busyness, Botakjones maintained excellent quality; I'm afraid Il Piccolo can't handle it. Either that or the evening chef is not as good. Either way, the bottomline conclusion is to go Il Piccolo for lunch instead, at an offpeak hour.
Sat 1 Mar
Today was stay-home-and-do-housework day. My wife and I cleaned the hamster cages, vacuumed the floor of various rooms, washed two of the three toilets, and did a few loads of laundry. Man, I think cleaning the house can be more tiring than regular exercise!
Sun 2 Mar
I went for service as usual, and had cell group with my boys at Eastpoint. Today service ended really late, partly because the other two services also ran into extra time. Interestingly enough, my boys weren't in any hurry to go off, so we hung around to chit-chat for a while, which was an enjoyable time. I went back home, then headed to White Sands for dinner with my wife, and proceeded to do heavy grocery shopping, including a whole lot of things for the hamsters. Man, keeping hamsters already cost quite a bit...I seriously can't imagine how people can keep dogs. That is like the expense of raising a child, essentially. I would love to keep a dog, but my financial common sense tells me it's a bad idea for me right now at least.
I finally updated my homepage! Now it has a link to a new mini-site I've put up that contains the story of how I got together with my wife in comic form. This comic is what I used to make the video I showed on my wedding, but now it's also in the flip format, just like the wedding album, so remember to click the bottom corner of the pages to flip 'em and read 'em.
Mon 3 Mar
I have finally changed my blog's banner (after procrastinating for so long because I can't find a suitable picture for the verse), and the picture! No more Ocean's Thirteen, because I finally watched a movie, and it's L - Change the World. Although nowhere as solid as the Death Note movies in terms of tight plot, the movie still held its ground despite the fact that there's no charismatic villain and eccentric shinigami. The movie wasn't fantastic for me, but enjoyable enough to be worth the money. Especially for anyone who likes L's character. And that's me.
Interestingly enough, the basic theme remains unchanged mostly. In Death Note, Yagami Light picks up the death note and decides to exterminate murderers and other felons, and then more. In L - Change the World, there is no death note (since L incinerated them all), but scientists who create biological weapons, and a radical group wants to exterminate all of mankind who are useless, but by whose definition, we don't know. The premise is once again the familiar Japanese theme - mankind has destroyed/on the verge of destroying the earth, so mankind must be exterminated to have a new beginning. It is the central theme of many movies and anime series. The movie manages to weave the timeline of this movie within the framework of the previous Death Note 2, and introduces a child who is a mathematical genius, and given the name "Near" at the very end of the movie. Any Death Note afficionado would instantly recognize the name, and probably jump at the suspected prospect of yet another spin-off revolving around Near. I know I did. (No Mellow though...hmmm.)
Sixth day of the manhunt for Mas Selamat. It is amazing how hard it can be to find one man even in our tiny red dot island. I seriously hope that he is found and arrested soon, not just for our security's sake, but for reputation's sake. Man, I sure hope for Singapore's sake that this doesn't become yet another thing for foreigners to remember Singapore by, like the country that caned Michael Faye, that banned chewing gum, and etc. It's everyone's duty to be vigilant. Especially since the police claims to have evidence that Mas Selamat is still hanging around here somewhere. I find myself scrutinizing faces when I move about these days, and at the same time recognizing that the general public seems to be still oblivious.
One ironic thing I found though was that the LCD screens at the MRT stations are showing all kinds of useless advertisements, and the extremely overplayed anti-terrorism video, but not showing the face of the wanted-man-of-the-moment as a reminder to the public. Hmm.
It was a long day at school, followed by the Masters' tutorial. Now he gives us yet another assignment on top of the 3000-word essay and group presentation, and it is to write a lesson plan for how to use Cooperative Learning in class. All the students were almost up-in-arms about it, and I intend to wage war the next lesson. Provided results are not out that very same day, in which case I would gladly give the tutorial a miss for official reasons.
After the lesson, my wife and I headed down to Bedok for dinner, and we went to the rose-from-the-ashes coffeeshop to have Botakjones fish n chips, and the Il Piccolo pasta and pizza, because our colleagues were raving about the pizza that they ate for lunch. The pasta today was a bit disappointing. The penne was too tough (undercooked, I presume), and the sauce was bland. So was the pizza. I think it was because of the crowdedness of the place. Last time, the coffeeshop had only a handful of customers; now, it only has only a handful of empty seats. It is seriously amazing. I had to queue for more than 15 minutes for Botakjones, and that was somewhere at 8 plus pm, which shouldn't be the dinner peak hour. Likewise it was a long queue and wait for the pizza and pasta. However, despite the extreme busyness, Botakjones maintained excellent quality; I'm afraid Il Piccolo can't handle it. Either that or the evening chef is not as good. Either way, the bottomline conclusion is to go Il Piccolo for lunch instead, at an offpeak hour.
Sat 1 Mar
Today was stay-home-and-do-housework day. My wife and I cleaned the hamster cages, vacuumed the floor of various rooms, washed two of the three toilets, and did a few loads of laundry. Man, I think cleaning the house can be more tiring than regular exercise!
Sun 2 Mar
I went for service as usual, and had cell group with my boys at Eastpoint. Today service ended really late, partly because the other two services also ran into extra time. Interestingly enough, my boys weren't in any hurry to go off, so we hung around to chit-chat for a while, which was an enjoyable time. I went back home, then headed to White Sands for dinner with my wife, and proceeded to do heavy grocery shopping, including a whole lot of things for the hamsters. Man, keeping hamsters already cost quite a bit...I seriously can't imagine how people can keep dogs. That is like the expense of raising a child, essentially. I would love to keep a dog, but my financial common sense tells me it's a bad idea for me right now at least.
I finally updated my homepage! Now it has a link to a new mini-site I've put up that contains the story of how I got together with my wife in comic form. This comic is what I used to make the video I showed on my wedding, but now it's also in the flip format, just like the wedding album, so remember to click the bottom corner of the pages to flip 'em and read 'em.
Mon 3 Mar
I have finally changed my blog's banner (after procrastinating for so long because I can't find a suitable picture for the verse), and the picture! No more Ocean's Thirteen, because I finally watched a movie, and it's L - Change the World. Although nowhere as solid as the Death Note movies in terms of tight plot, the movie still held its ground despite the fact that there's no charismatic villain and eccentric shinigami. The movie wasn't fantastic for me, but enjoyable enough to be worth the money. Especially for anyone who likes L's character. And that's me.
Interestingly enough, the basic theme remains unchanged mostly. In Death Note, Yagami Light picks up the death note and decides to exterminate murderers and other felons, and then more. In L - Change the World, there is no death note (since L incinerated them all), but scientists who create biological weapons, and a radical group wants to exterminate all of mankind who are useless, but by whose definition, we don't know. The premise is once again the familiar Japanese theme - mankind has destroyed/on the verge of destroying the earth, so mankind must be exterminated to have a new beginning. It is the central theme of many movies and anime series. The movie manages to weave the timeline of this movie within the framework of the previous Death Note 2, and introduces a child who is a mathematical genius, and given the name "Near" at the very end of the movie. Any Death Note afficionado would instantly recognize the name, and probably jump at the suspected prospect of yet another spin-off revolving around Near. I know I did. (No Mellow though...hmmm.)
Sixth day of the manhunt for Mas Selamat. It is amazing how hard it can be to find one man even in our tiny red dot island. I seriously hope that he is found and arrested soon, not just for our security's sake, but for reputation's sake. Man, I sure hope for Singapore's sake that this doesn't become yet another thing for foreigners to remember Singapore by, like the country that caned Michael Faye, that banned chewing gum, and etc. It's everyone's duty to be vigilant. Especially since the police claims to have evidence that Mas Selamat is still hanging around here somewhere. I find myself scrutinizing faces when I move about these days, and at the same time recognizing that the general public seems to be still oblivious.
One ironic thing I found though was that the LCD screens at the MRT stations are showing all kinds of useless advertisements, and the extremely overplayed anti-terrorism video, but not showing the face of the wanted-man-of-the-moment as a reminder to the public. Hmm.
