Monday, June 30, 2008
Sat 21 Jun
We had some free time today so we headed down to OG to look for more baby stuff. With the Great Singapore Sale, some of the baby items there were genuinely cheaper than many places outside, so we bought many miscellaneous items, like a raincover for the pram, more baby clothes for 0 to 6 months and etc.
So far that my wife has been pregnant, we still seldom see people giving up seats for her (or other pregnant women and older folks, for that matter). As far as demographics are concerned, thus far the number of men and women giving up seats have tipped in favour of the men slightly. The most interesting observation I find is that I still haven't seen anyone under the age of 25 (an estimation for university undergraduates and younger) give up seats for her. Oddly enough, many who give up seats are middle-aged, some of whom even deserve to have others give up seats for them. It is quite shocking, frankly, and considering how we aspire to be a civil city, I think the civic-mindedness of individuals fall far behind other Asian cities. I have heard examples of, say, Taiwan, where even on a crowded train, commuters will not sit on the seat reserved for the elderly and pregnant women so as to leave room for them. My friend was relating an anecdote of him being there travelling, and sitting there unaware, and was glared at by other commuters.
Anyway, today when my wife got on the train, as usual, many who were awake suddenly fell asleep, and most just appeared nonchalant. This man in his forties who was standing noticed my wife, and immediately looked around, and appeared angry that no one was giving up seats. He went on to tap the shoulder of one PRC guy, pointed at my wife's belly, and signalled him to get out of his seat. The PRC guy immediately looked embarrassed, apologized and offered his seat. Strange thing was the friend next to him also stood up, and offered me a seat! I refused of course, and motioned for another pregnant lady a few persons away to have the seat.
We have a long, long way to go as a country.
Sun 22 Jun
I went to service as usual, and afterward my boys came over to my place for cell group, playing Dungeons & Dragons with me after that. Surprisingly, they took to the original paper, pen and dice game very well, despite my impression that kids of their generation merely took to computer and online games. I started a campaign with all my boys so that they can learn some teamwork, communicate and bond more. It is truly hard for me to find something that all of my boys, with their very diverse backgrounds and interests, can do together.
I think I struck gold with this idea. Heh.
After that, one of my boys joined me and my wife for dinner at Whitesands Lerk Thai. The food was somewhat disappointing today, below the usual standard, but what was bad was that we waited more than 20 minutes for the food to be served, and the place was hardly packed! There were at most three tables' worth of people, although one table had a full force of about eight persons. We were practically starving by the time the first dish came. It took another five minutes for the last dish to arrive.
Mon 23 Jun
School has resumed! I was not exactly looking forward to the new term because I felt like I hardly had a holiday and rest, but I figured that since this was the June Common Test week, I should be able to get some needed rest still.
I was so dead wrong about that.
Read on for the descriptions of the days of this whole week, and you will see why. I had to settle quite a lot of administrative tasks in the morning. I thought today was a good day, so I started asking my colleagues for a mahjong session in the afternoon. Then everything started falling apart. I suddenly had an urgent TA meeting at 11 am, because on Wed and Thu we were going to run this TA appetizers segment for the interviewees for next year's batch to expose them to the THINK cycle, which was how we taught science in the TA programme. So the meeting was to iron out the details for that, and it went all the way to 1.00 pm. Only when I checked the email in the late morning before the meeting did I find out that there was a briefing at Suntec Tower 3 regarding the Infocomm Club that I had to attend with a couple of colleagues. This was an oversight on my part because the date was locked in a long time ago, only that all three of us clean forgot about it.
There went the idea of mahjong.
Once my meeting ended, we rushed down to Suntec, only to find out that the official briefing would start at 3 pm, and from 2 pm to 3 pm, it was registration and refreshments. We had rushed like mad to gobble down lunch at Burger Kings, and this was very unwelcome information. The worst thing was that we sat through one hour of briefing regarding exactly the same things that we had heard before when the IDA representative came down to our school before. The only thing we essentially came for was the Adobe presentation in which the guy demonstrated what the full suite of Adobe is capable of. Now that was impressive. And expensive.
My colleague dropped both of us off at Tampines, and I waited for my wife to arrive after her invigilation to have dinner with me at Crystal Jade. Today's porridge was too watery, and my wife's fried rice had two obvious strands of hair in it that she informed the staff about. The service standard was indeed good. Even though my wife did not want a new plate of rice (she ate more than half before making the gross discovery), they gave up free red bean paste desserts to compensate.
Tue 24 Jun
I started the day with invigilation of the TA 1 common test paper, which went all the way till the late morning. I settled some urgent adminstration, and then rushed down to Parkway Parade. A whole bunch of us got promoted recently, myself included, and so we were giving the department a treat at Swensen's.
I think the Swensen's at Parkway Parade sucks. I seldom utterly write off outlets like this, but today really was outright bad. We reached there at around 11.30 am, and the whole restaurant was empty, save for us. After our orders were taken, we waited quite a long time before they served the food. And they got many of our orders mixed up! The sirloin steaks and ribeye steaks were mixed up, and the level of 'done-ness' was also wrong. We tried to reconfirm the orders, but they still mixed it up again. Since this was an executive lunch set, we were supposed to have tea, coffee or soft drinks. Those who ordered coffee were not served at all, but we assumed it was to be served after the meal perhaps (even though tea and soft drinks came with the meal proper), and when we asked for it, the waitresses disappeared, and when we were nearly rushing to leave, then they told us that the coffee machine was down, and only had tea.
The other bad thing was that despite us being the only customers there for a good half an hour, we could hardly get the attention of the waitresses! My colleague had to wave, and wave, and wave before one of them would notice her. The level of attentiveness was very poor considering that we were the only ones around. And man, the ribeye steak that I ordered was pathetic. I was grateful that they wanted to offer me such a big chunk of meat, but anyone who has remotely gone to a barbecue would know that it was difficult to grill too thick a slab of meat, especially when I wanted medium-rare. If it was me, I would at least have sliced the meat into two thinner halves before cooking it. As it was, the outside of the meat was overcooked and tough, and the inside was very bloody. Fortunately my stomach and palate both could take it, but it made my female colleagues (and wife) recoil in disgust seeing the bloodiness of the meat. The food was just sub-par. I eat occasionally at the Swensen's at Whitesands, and the food standard there was way better than this. I will never eat at this outlet again, unless I am forced by circumstance (e.g. a department lunch treat like this one).
After lunch, I rushed back to school to start my marking of the TA 1 chemistry paper. I had to finish it in one go by today because the JC 2 papers come in tomorrow, and I will not have time to mark over the next few days. So the second day of school was another late day for me. Great.
Wed 25 Jun
It was a mad rush in the morning getting ready for the JC 2 chemistry paper, and I ran around with another colleague sourcing for data booklets for the hall side. I think a colleague might have took out some to administer some test or exercise with his or her class and forgot to replace them. Anyway, that took up to almost lunch time. My subject head was nice enough to let me choose what question to mark because I had to mark TA 1 chemistry as well, and I had been complaining about this disgusting week of briefings and meetings. They allowed my choice of a fairly easy question to mark (I got third pick only though), and I started marking a couple of classes before grabbing a hasty lunch, and then preparing for the TA appetizers thing.
That took from 2 to 3 pm to administer, and I think the students who came were all pretty responsive and engaged, so I guess that was a fruitful time spent - but a sacrifice actually, since it was in the midst of busy marking period. Right after that, I rushed onto a cab and headed off to Spring Auditorium at Bukit Merah to attend a briefing for supervisors for listening comprehension. That was a new assignment for July, and thankfully, the supervisor role was a relatively small one, more or less to make sure that facilities and equipment were up and running. I thought the briefing would be a long one, but it only took 20 minutes. Since it ended early at 4.20 pm, I figured that I might as well rush back to school and continue my marking, and to take some important things I had left in school home. That turned out to be a good choice, because I managed to finish about two-fifth of the marking before I went to have dinner with my wife.
Thu 26 Jun
I only had the morning to do marking, and I didn't want to bottleneck the whole department, so I rushed like mad, and finished at 11 am, to the shock and horror of several colleagues who said (jokingly, I presume) that they should not have let me chosen the question to mark. Guess I still haven't lost my touch there...heh. I grabbed a quick lunch after settling more adminstration, and it was the second round of TA Appetizers from 2 to 3 pm. Right after this ended, my colleague and I rushed down to Teachers' Network for a briefing (third briefing for me this week, one more to go tomorrow) about next week's Excelfest. The only fruitful thing out of this was that we received the three pull-up banners I designed for SynTactic, and the random one I pulled out to see looked great. Guess I didn't spend all those hours on the banners for nothing. My colleague dropped me off at Eunos, and I made it back home in time to have dinner. My wife's cell group sisters, leader and pastor all came over to visit her, bringing durian (my planted suggestion), so I was awoken from my nap to entertain them all. First time there was so much estrogen in my house.
Fri 27 Jun
So why did I rush my marking the way I did? Because today was a goner. I was back in Kranji Camp for a mobilization briefing. I actully only had a grand total of five hours on Wed and Thu for marking my question for the full cohort of 600 students, and I made good use of that time. It was quite pleasant meeting my army friends again, but today was a waste of time. Not the content, but the waiting inbetween. We were supposed to report at 9, but the briefing to the men was due only at 10. So we had good male bonding and chitchatting for a good hour first. We had to put up with a horrible sound system with which there was a ridiculous amount of echo and feedback, and I think the whole briefing today could be summarized by a few words - "Testing...one...two...three...four" as they tried to salvage the system.
The briefing and a tour of the camp to let us know where all the crucial equipment was scheduled to last till 12.30 pm, but amazingly it ended at 11 am! Clearly again a case of over-allocation of time, but nothing new there with the military apparently. The best thing was that somehow the people who planned this was so exceedingly kind they thought that we needed to have lunch in the camp, and they indented for us lunch...at 1 pm! So what did we do? Continue our male bonding and chitchatting (a.k.a. rotting) for a good two hours. What a magnificent use of time.
At 1 pm thereabouts, we finally got to eat. Now, I had thought that army food had improved in many places, especially in Sungei Gedong where I do my in-camp training. So I was not expecting something this disgusting. It was fried bee hoon, with a crummy, wet, and not-remotely-near-to-crispy chicken wing, and some curry vegetables for lunch. The inedible stuff was accompanied by the saving grace of orange pudding. We went back to the hall to wait for outprocessing. They had scheduled it at 2 pm, and boy, were they punctual. Even though everyone was good and ready to go, they waited till the clock struck two before starting the outprocessing. The whole thing took eternity to complete (everything in the army feels like eternity anyway) even though it was about 25 minutes of waiting, but man, how long can scanning one IC be? Oh yeah, and we spent a long time waiting for our Commanding Officer to arrive to give us a briefing of what had happened to our reservist unit. My in-camp training actually got cancelled officially because the unit would be disbanded to redeploy to other units. We waited quite a while for his briefing, and half the time he was saying that he didn't have the details. Great.
My magic kakis and I had initially thought that the briefing would, like the name suggests, be brief, so we brought a few magic decks to play for nostalgic reasons, but in the end, we only managed to play for a short while before I had to rush home to buy dinner for my wife, and my army friends to their respective programmes. A friend came over to visit us at night, and we had quite a good chat with her.
Sat 28 Jun
Finally, a day of rest. I refused to do any work today to give myself a break. My wife's aunts came over in the evening and bought some nice food for us from Eunos, and we spent some time chitchatting.
Sun 29 Jun
I went to service as usual, and today my wife wasn't with me, and neither was my G12 brother Collin, so I ended up taking over three cell groups. Of course, after the smoke cleared (i.e. the people who needed to leave left), there were only seven left. After cell group, my boys came over to my place to continue the Dungeons & Dragons campaign for a short while, and I was surprised that they were that enthusiastic about it to come, even for just an hour and a half to play.
Mon 30 Jun
Lessons resume, and I had the wonderful task of being a herald of bad news, i.e. return exam scripts. I didn't want to scold my students because there were many who must had put in significant effort, but I had to paint for them the reality of the situation still. Since I have lessons with all my classes on Mondays, I had to be the prophet of doom four times. Hmm...maybe a lighthearted prophet of doom for my TA 4 classes. Sigh.
We had some free time today so we headed down to OG to look for more baby stuff. With the Great Singapore Sale, some of the baby items there were genuinely cheaper than many places outside, so we bought many miscellaneous items, like a raincover for the pram, more baby clothes for 0 to 6 months and etc.
So far that my wife has been pregnant, we still seldom see people giving up seats for her (or other pregnant women and older folks, for that matter). As far as demographics are concerned, thus far the number of men and women giving up seats have tipped in favour of the men slightly. The most interesting observation I find is that I still haven't seen anyone under the age of 25 (an estimation for university undergraduates and younger) give up seats for her. Oddly enough, many who give up seats are middle-aged, some of whom even deserve to have others give up seats for them. It is quite shocking, frankly, and considering how we aspire to be a civil city, I think the civic-mindedness of individuals fall far behind other Asian cities. I have heard examples of, say, Taiwan, where even on a crowded train, commuters will not sit on the seat reserved for the elderly and pregnant women so as to leave room for them. My friend was relating an anecdote of him being there travelling, and sitting there unaware, and was glared at by other commuters.
Anyway, today when my wife got on the train, as usual, many who were awake suddenly fell asleep, and most just appeared nonchalant. This man in his forties who was standing noticed my wife, and immediately looked around, and appeared angry that no one was giving up seats. He went on to tap the shoulder of one PRC guy, pointed at my wife's belly, and signalled him to get out of his seat. The PRC guy immediately looked embarrassed, apologized and offered his seat. Strange thing was the friend next to him also stood up, and offered me a seat! I refused of course, and motioned for another pregnant lady a few persons away to have the seat.
We have a long, long way to go as a country.
Sun 22 Jun
I went to service as usual, and afterward my boys came over to my place for cell group, playing Dungeons & Dragons with me after that. Surprisingly, they took to the original paper, pen and dice game very well, despite my impression that kids of their generation merely took to computer and online games. I started a campaign with all my boys so that they can learn some teamwork, communicate and bond more. It is truly hard for me to find something that all of my boys, with their very diverse backgrounds and interests, can do together.
I think I struck gold with this idea. Heh.
After that, one of my boys joined me and my wife for dinner at Whitesands Lerk Thai. The food was somewhat disappointing today, below the usual standard, but what was bad was that we waited more than 20 minutes for the food to be served, and the place was hardly packed! There were at most three tables' worth of people, although one table had a full force of about eight persons. We were practically starving by the time the first dish came. It took another five minutes for the last dish to arrive.
Mon 23 Jun
School has resumed! I was not exactly looking forward to the new term because I felt like I hardly had a holiday and rest, but I figured that since this was the June Common Test week, I should be able to get some needed rest still.
I was so dead wrong about that.
Read on for the descriptions of the days of this whole week, and you will see why. I had to settle quite a lot of administrative tasks in the morning. I thought today was a good day, so I started asking my colleagues for a mahjong session in the afternoon. Then everything started falling apart. I suddenly had an urgent TA meeting at 11 am, because on Wed and Thu we were going to run this TA appetizers segment for the interviewees for next year's batch to expose them to the THINK cycle, which was how we taught science in the TA programme. So the meeting was to iron out the details for that, and it went all the way to 1.00 pm. Only when I checked the email in the late morning before the meeting did I find out that there was a briefing at Suntec Tower 3 regarding the Infocomm Club that I had to attend with a couple of colleagues. This was an oversight on my part because the date was locked in a long time ago, only that all three of us clean forgot about it.
There went the idea of mahjong.
Once my meeting ended, we rushed down to Suntec, only to find out that the official briefing would start at 3 pm, and from 2 pm to 3 pm, it was registration and refreshments. We had rushed like mad to gobble down lunch at Burger Kings, and this was very unwelcome information. The worst thing was that we sat through one hour of briefing regarding exactly the same things that we had heard before when the IDA representative came down to our school before. The only thing we essentially came for was the Adobe presentation in which the guy demonstrated what the full suite of Adobe is capable of. Now that was impressive. And expensive.
My colleague dropped both of us off at Tampines, and I waited for my wife to arrive after her invigilation to have dinner with me at Crystal Jade. Today's porridge was too watery, and my wife's fried rice had two obvious strands of hair in it that she informed the staff about. The service standard was indeed good. Even though my wife did not want a new plate of rice (she ate more than half before making the gross discovery), they gave up free red bean paste desserts to compensate.
Tue 24 Jun
I started the day with invigilation of the TA 1 common test paper, which went all the way till the late morning. I settled some urgent adminstration, and then rushed down to Parkway Parade. A whole bunch of us got promoted recently, myself included, and so we were giving the department a treat at Swensen's.
I think the Swensen's at Parkway Parade sucks. I seldom utterly write off outlets like this, but today really was outright bad. We reached there at around 11.30 am, and the whole restaurant was empty, save for us. After our orders were taken, we waited quite a long time before they served the food. And they got many of our orders mixed up! The sirloin steaks and ribeye steaks were mixed up, and the level of 'done-ness' was also wrong. We tried to reconfirm the orders, but they still mixed it up again. Since this was an executive lunch set, we were supposed to have tea, coffee or soft drinks. Those who ordered coffee were not served at all, but we assumed it was to be served after the meal perhaps (even though tea and soft drinks came with the meal proper), and when we asked for it, the waitresses disappeared, and when we were nearly rushing to leave, then they told us that the coffee machine was down, and only had tea.
The other bad thing was that despite us being the only customers there for a good half an hour, we could hardly get the attention of the waitresses! My colleague had to wave, and wave, and wave before one of them would notice her. The level of attentiveness was very poor considering that we were the only ones around. And man, the ribeye steak that I ordered was pathetic. I was grateful that they wanted to offer me such a big chunk of meat, but anyone who has remotely gone to a barbecue would know that it was difficult to grill too thick a slab of meat, especially when I wanted medium-rare. If it was me, I would at least have sliced the meat into two thinner halves before cooking it. As it was, the outside of the meat was overcooked and tough, and the inside was very bloody. Fortunately my stomach and palate both could take it, but it made my female colleagues (and wife) recoil in disgust seeing the bloodiness of the meat. The food was just sub-par. I eat occasionally at the Swensen's at Whitesands, and the food standard there was way better than this. I will never eat at this outlet again, unless I am forced by circumstance (e.g. a department lunch treat like this one).
After lunch, I rushed back to school to start my marking of the TA 1 chemistry paper. I had to finish it in one go by today because the JC 2 papers come in tomorrow, and I will not have time to mark over the next few days. So the second day of school was another late day for me. Great.
Wed 25 Jun
It was a mad rush in the morning getting ready for the JC 2 chemistry paper, and I ran around with another colleague sourcing for data booklets for the hall side. I think a colleague might have took out some to administer some test or exercise with his or her class and forgot to replace them. Anyway, that took up to almost lunch time. My subject head was nice enough to let me choose what question to mark because I had to mark TA 1 chemistry as well, and I had been complaining about this disgusting week of briefings and meetings. They allowed my choice of a fairly easy question to mark (I got third pick only though), and I started marking a couple of classes before grabbing a hasty lunch, and then preparing for the TA appetizers thing.
That took from 2 to 3 pm to administer, and I think the students who came were all pretty responsive and engaged, so I guess that was a fruitful time spent - but a sacrifice actually, since it was in the midst of busy marking period. Right after that, I rushed onto a cab and headed off to Spring Auditorium at Bukit Merah to attend a briefing for supervisors for listening comprehension. That was a new assignment for July, and thankfully, the supervisor role was a relatively small one, more or less to make sure that facilities and equipment were up and running. I thought the briefing would be a long one, but it only took 20 minutes. Since it ended early at 4.20 pm, I figured that I might as well rush back to school and continue my marking, and to take some important things I had left in school home. That turned out to be a good choice, because I managed to finish about two-fifth of the marking before I went to have dinner with my wife.
Thu 26 Jun
I only had the morning to do marking, and I didn't want to bottleneck the whole department, so I rushed like mad, and finished at 11 am, to the shock and horror of several colleagues who said (jokingly, I presume) that they should not have let me chosen the question to mark. Guess I still haven't lost my touch there...heh. I grabbed a quick lunch after settling more adminstration, and it was the second round of TA Appetizers from 2 to 3 pm. Right after this ended, my colleague and I rushed down to Teachers' Network for a briefing (third briefing for me this week, one more to go tomorrow) about next week's Excelfest. The only fruitful thing out of this was that we received the three pull-up banners I designed for SynTactic, and the random one I pulled out to see looked great. Guess I didn't spend all those hours on the banners for nothing. My colleague dropped me off at Eunos, and I made it back home in time to have dinner. My wife's cell group sisters, leader and pastor all came over to visit her, bringing durian (my planted suggestion), so I was awoken from my nap to entertain them all. First time there was so much estrogen in my house.
Fri 27 Jun
So why did I rush my marking the way I did? Because today was a goner. I was back in Kranji Camp for a mobilization briefing. I actully only had a grand total of five hours on Wed and Thu for marking my question for the full cohort of 600 students, and I made good use of that time. It was quite pleasant meeting my army friends again, but today was a waste of time. Not the content, but the waiting inbetween. We were supposed to report at 9, but the briefing to the men was due only at 10. So we had good male bonding and chitchatting for a good hour first. We had to put up with a horrible sound system with which there was a ridiculous amount of echo and feedback, and I think the whole briefing today could be summarized by a few words - "Testing...one...two...three...four" as they tried to salvage the system.
The briefing and a tour of the camp to let us know where all the crucial equipment was scheduled to last till 12.30 pm, but amazingly it ended at 11 am! Clearly again a case of over-allocation of time, but nothing new there with the military apparently. The best thing was that somehow the people who planned this was so exceedingly kind they thought that we needed to have lunch in the camp, and they indented for us lunch...at 1 pm! So what did we do? Continue our male bonding and chitchatting (a.k.a. rotting) for a good two hours. What a magnificent use of time.
At 1 pm thereabouts, we finally got to eat. Now, I had thought that army food had improved in many places, especially in Sungei Gedong where I do my in-camp training. So I was not expecting something this disgusting. It was fried bee hoon, with a crummy, wet, and not-remotely-near-to-crispy chicken wing, and some curry vegetables for lunch. The inedible stuff was accompanied by the saving grace of orange pudding. We went back to the hall to wait for outprocessing. They had scheduled it at 2 pm, and boy, were they punctual. Even though everyone was good and ready to go, they waited till the clock struck two before starting the outprocessing. The whole thing took eternity to complete (everything in the army feels like eternity anyway) even though it was about 25 minutes of waiting, but man, how long can scanning one IC be? Oh yeah, and we spent a long time waiting for our Commanding Officer to arrive to give us a briefing of what had happened to our reservist unit. My in-camp training actually got cancelled officially because the unit would be disbanded to redeploy to other units. We waited quite a while for his briefing, and half the time he was saying that he didn't have the details. Great.
My magic kakis and I had initially thought that the briefing would, like the name suggests, be brief, so we brought a few magic decks to play for nostalgic reasons, but in the end, we only managed to play for a short while before I had to rush home to buy dinner for my wife, and my army friends to their respective programmes. A friend came over to visit us at night, and we had quite a good chat with her.
Sat 28 Jun
Finally, a day of rest. I refused to do any work today to give myself a break. My wife's aunts came over in the evening and bought some nice food for us from Eunos, and we spent some time chitchatting.
Sun 29 Jun
I went to service as usual, and today my wife wasn't with me, and neither was my G12 brother Collin, so I ended up taking over three cell groups. Of course, after the smoke cleared (i.e. the people who needed to leave left), there were only seven left. After cell group, my boys came over to my place to continue the Dungeons & Dragons campaign for a short while, and I was surprised that they were that enthusiastic about it to come, even for just an hour and a half to play.
Mon 30 Jun
Lessons resume, and I had the wonderful task of being a herald of bad news, i.e. return exam scripts. I didn't want to scold my students because there were many who must had put in significant effort, but I had to paint for them the reality of the situation still. Since I have lessons with all my classes on Mondays, I had to be the prophet of doom four times. Hmm...maybe a lighthearted prophet of doom for my TA 4 classes. Sigh.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Oh no, a 12-day post. I was procrastinating happily a bit too much...
Tue 10 Jun
It was a quiet day of rest, involving playing games and watching anime. My wife and I only went out of the house to go to Downtown East to have dinner at Mr Chicken Rice.
Wed 11 Jun
We borrowed One Night with the King from a colleague because my wife was going to show the movie to her cell group girls. I was playing it on the player to test whether the disc would work, but my wife was so enraptured by the movie that she ended up watching the whole movie through. I sat through the movie with her because I watched it last year, and didn't mind watching it again. I guess the mood is different depending on the company. When I watched it last year, it was during a Good Friday event, and I don't know if it was the food that made some of the guys there sleepy, but a couple of them were dozing off during the show, and my boys didn't seem particularly impressed. So somehow I don't remember liking the show. But watching it with my wife again, I thought the show was quite good actually. Interesting how enjoyment of a movie, or maybe even a vacation and other things, is so closely knit to the exact circumstances of the moment.
Thu 12 Jun
We went to Best Denki at Century Square to take a look at dryers, but were unable to find something we liked. In fact, the salesperson we initially talked to was disappointing. When we asked him what was the difference between the different models and brands, he only could tell us about the load. I think I don't need to be working in a appliances store to know that the number next to "kg" on every dryer tells me the load it can take. Thankfully the next guy at least could tell us something about condenser dryers and functions on the dryers.
We decided to head down to Baby's Kingdom to buy some more baby stuff. During the last visit, we bought a nice cot, but technically the price was just $1 under $300, which was the condition for free delivery. Anyway we had to buy a pair of gates to affix to our staircase (eventually) to prevent accidents when our baby learns to crawl around, and we thought we might as well buy it earlier. We decided to look for bus 15, which a bus driver told us was available at the bus stop behind one of the buildings. It wasn't there, though, and I was quite sure it was available one bus stop down. My wife's feet were sore then, so we flagged down a cab along the walk instead.
That was a mistake.
We got on the Silvercab and told him the address (Kaki Bukit Avenue 1). He looked unsure, and asked us one more time, and wanted to see the name card, but we told him to just get to Kaki Bukit Avenue 1. We went on our way, and although the route he took looked odd, at least it seemed like we were reaching Kaki Bukit. He exited near Kaki Bukit Avenue 4, and drove round in circles almost, and could only reach Avenue 3. He then asked us the address again, and we emphasized that it was Avenue 1, and he took a big round back onto the expressway. We then told him that the location was near a mosque, and he went, "That's not Kaki Bukit what, it's at Bedok already". I was starting to get irritated at that point. Although Kaki Bukit Avenue 1 was just after the edge of Bedok, the mosque was clearly in Kaki Bukit already. Anyway, come on, he didn't need to refer to the mosque to get there right? How can a cab driver be unable to find a whole avenue?
So anyway, he drove us to the mosque area, but he was on the wrong side of the road. He actually told us, "I'll drop you all in front there, and you can cross the bridge" even after we mentioned that the building we were going to was along the opposite road. Wah kau, I pay for cab fare to drop off opposite where I am heading and have a pregnant wife cross the overhead bridge? So I told him to go make a U-turn. He started murmuring a complaint about how far the U-turn in front was, and I was getting pissed. He made the U-turn, and drove along, and when he saw a side gate, he swerved in to drop us off, even after we told him the building number! He said, "You can go in through here."
The gate was closed lor.
I told him firmly but with an irritated tone that the place we were going was further in front (it was one whole bus stop's distance further), so he should drive on. I was already maintaining composure, and he then asked if the place was along one of the side roads in Kaki Bukit and if the address was wrong. Wah biang eh! I was considering saying with dripping sarcasm, "Yeah, the company that printed the name card got its own address wrong" but decided to be nice and said, "No, the address here says it's Avenue 1". The last straw was when he said, "This is not Avenue 1 mah".
I was really pissed. Now he can't even read road signs? It was clearly Kaki Bukit Avenue 1. Come on, if you were wrong, just admit it and say you are sorry about it, and we would be fine. First he made it look like we made him confused by not mentioning the mosque. Then he implied that we got it wrong because the mosque was not in Kaki Bukit, then he asked if we got the address on a name card (we were reading off) wrong, and then he claimed that the road we were on wasn't Avenue 1??? And he wanted to drop us off opposite the road first, and later at an entrance too far off. Whatever happened to "Customers are always right"? He seemed to be the boss and we had to listen to his instructions apparently. Eventually, the detours caused the fare to be about $13+, and the last time we came, from Tampines as well, it costed $9.80. My wife gave him $10 deliberately, and we were prepared to argue if he wanted to take the full amount, but at least the saving grace was that he gracefully took the $10 and said, "No problem".
We were finally at Baby's Kingdom, and we bought the gates along with a sterilizer for the milk bottles. I chanced upon a big tent with plastic balls (like the kind they have at Ikea for the kids to play in), and it was going to be my G12 leader's daughter's one-year birthday on the coming Sunday, so we bought it. We had to head down to cell group, so we decided to take a straight bus to Bukit Merah instead of detouring to Parkway and changing to 197. That took us on a painful hour-plus bus ride. Sigh. These are times I wish I had a car.
Fri 13 Jun
My wife's girls came over to watch One Night with the King and were bunking over. We went over to Elias Mall for dinner before watching it, and after the show I taught them how to play Texas Hold 'Em Up poker using chips but not involving real money. They really enjoyed it, and I think it was very fun, with many surprising spectacular finishes through the night. I think out of the poker games I know, this one is the most fun of all to play.
Sat 14 Jun
I headed off to attend my colleague's wedding in the late morning at Lighthouse Evangelism church. He picked rather interesting worship songs, especially a Hokkien one which sounded quite amusing. There was a huge bunch of students attending the wedding as well, and I think the TA1 kids really dressed up for this. Perhaps it was their first church wedding attended? My poor wife had to go to the gynae to get medication because she got hives from some food allergy (or hormonal changes), so that was why I went to the wedding by myself.
I was almost going to play mahjong in the late afternoon today, but the plans fell through, so I went over to Whitesands and bought a whole batch of movie DVDs. My wife and I watched Underdog first, which we both found to be very entertaining fare. I enjoy talking-animals (the kind that uses CG effects to make it look like the animals were really talking) type of movies, including my all-time favourite Cats and Dogs, and Charlotte's Web.
Sun 15 Jun
There was combined service in the morning, which I knew about three weeks ago, so I had then planned for a...mahjong session afterwards! I brought Collin and shups! to Hi Sshou for a cheap but delicious lunch. Allan came over to join us around 2 pm, and we started our session. Two rounds went by till dinner time, and poor Allan lost money to the rest of us. I won a modest $7, the least of the three. After a disappointing Canadian 2-for-1 pizza dinner, Allan left and we couldn't find a fourth kaki, so Collin, shups! and I resumed two more rounds with three-person mahjong. That was devastating for them, because I won $44 from them even at 10c/20c, and I felt quite bad about it. I think shups! must have felt like I "cheated" her money, because this was the first time she played three-person mahjong.
Mon 16 Jun
I spent most of the day at home doing some work. The lady who sold us the powerful Rainbow vacuum cleaner came down to give a more detailed demonstration, and to explain the uses of some of the more uncommon looking parts. She had no further appointments after us, and hung around quite a long time to chat, and gave us advice on pregnancy stuff. An interesting conversation, especially considering that she was from China. My wife and I then went to Whitesands for dinner at Wan Chai, and came back to do some more work.
We had been watching the movie DVDs we bought in the past few days, and we cleared movies like Eragon, Fantastic Four, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and etc. Now it really feels like a holiday. Heh.
Tue 17 Jun
It was a quiet day today. We had our interior designer visit us to check the kitchen sink and cabinet because it was still leaking a bit, and there was some black dirt thing seemingly falling from the wood. Although I don't know what went wrong, at least the after-sales service of the ID firm is pretty good. Anyway, I asked Ken to help me check the balcony as well, because it was perpetually wet, and I couldn't tell if there was something wrong with the aircon piping, or if it was the water that went into the wall from the guest room that could have flowed down, since the leaking at my guest room stopped overnight suddenly one day a few months ago. Otherwise, I was perfectly happy with my house. Sigh. I seriously hope it isn't the latter, because that would involve the HDB's intervention, and considering my experience with HDB thus far, it means no intervention at all - they would probably tell me it was my own problem and ask me to get a contractor to fix it myself, just like the case of my windows that leaked.
Wed 18 Jun
I had to return to school today to receive about half of the SynTactic card sets from the printing firm, and since I was back there, I arranged for a couple of consultations with my TA1 students, and did some work inbetween. The card sets look pretty good actually, and I am glad I can manage graphic design on my own, so the whole design from concept to appearance was entirely my brainchild. My wife went with me to eat lunch at the food centre opposite the school, and to check out the electric appliances shop there. We were shopping for a dryer, since there was absolutely nowhere we could sun our clothes, and wind-drying wasn't the best solution. In the end, we decided to get an Electrolux dryer, and on top of that, we bought a front-load washing machine as well because the current configuration in my house was more suitable for a vertical outlet pipe (from front-load washing machines) than a horizontal one that traps water (from top-load washing machines). The other reason was that the washing machine in my in-laws' place was getting cranky, so we thought we might as well get a more suitable one for our place, and move our existing washer over.
I headed off to Hair De Vogue to get a haircut because my hair was way too thick. Today I was fortunate because my hairdresser Calvin was just done with his previous customer, so I had negligible waiting time. I think today the guy who shampooed my hair must had been quite free at the point, because he was massaging my head for very, very long. It was very soothing, but it felt like ten minutes had gone by at least. Anyway, Calvin's skill with the scissors was still impressive, and I think now I cannot imagine trading the $25 experience with an average neighbourhood barber's $7 haircut.
Thu 19 Jun
I had a late breakfast to make room for...Japanese buffet! I still think the buffet at Nihon Mura at Downtown East (or maybe the other branches too, but I haven't checked them out yet) is the best deal. The food quality is excellent, and although the menu is not as extensive as, say, Miramar Hotel's Ikoi, but for the items that Nihon Mura has, they all taste delicious. Today's juice of the day was watermelon juice, which was disappointingly not sweet, and the initial order took eons to arrive, because there were many customers, but worst of all was this noisy boy seated next to my table, whom my wife and I both couldn't stand. He was whining half the time, and just making noise for no apparent reason the other half of the time. Anyway, I think the buffet is really worth the money, especially for someone like me who ate about eight portions of salmon, tuna and prawn (amaebi) sashimi, which if based on, say, Sakae Sushi prices, would already be worth the two $16.90++ we paid (after all the ++, it was about $20 per head).
After that we headed down to Bugis, and went to the OG in the area to buy some baby stuff, which individually was quite cheap during the sale, but added up to quite a sum. Once we were done, we made our long way down to TCT at Bukit Merah for our respective cell groups.
Fri 20 Jun
I stayed home today to await the arrival of the new washing machine and dryer. Now the balcony looks quite different, but at least the dryer should solve the issue of not being able to sun the clothes. I was doing research on which dryer brand was better over the internet, and came across this Stomp forum thread where many people living in executive maisonettes were complaining about the lack of bamboo pole holders, and they were ranting about how the design was stupid and etc. It was comforting in a weird way to know that there were fellow sufferers out there.
I only went out in the evening with my wife to Downtown East (again!). We originally wanted to watch a movie, but when we got there, the tickets for Get Smart were selling fast already. I wonder if it is due to the fact that it is still the holidays, or whether weekends will always be this crowded. We went to Mr Chicken Rice once it opened at 5 pm for a satisfying dinner, and I got a Honey Aloe Vera from Cup Walker for a drink, and topped it off with delicious yoghurt from The Yoghurt Place. If you ever go to Downtown East, you should try the yoghurt. I don't quite like yoghurt in general, but the stuff there is really good.
Tue 10 Jun
It was a quiet day of rest, involving playing games and watching anime. My wife and I only went out of the house to go to Downtown East to have dinner at Mr Chicken Rice.
Wed 11 Jun
We borrowed One Night with the King from a colleague because my wife was going to show the movie to her cell group girls. I was playing it on the player to test whether the disc would work, but my wife was so enraptured by the movie that she ended up watching the whole movie through. I sat through the movie with her because I watched it last year, and didn't mind watching it again. I guess the mood is different depending on the company. When I watched it last year, it was during a Good Friday event, and I don't know if it was the food that made some of the guys there sleepy, but a couple of them were dozing off during the show, and my boys didn't seem particularly impressed. So somehow I don't remember liking the show. But watching it with my wife again, I thought the show was quite good actually. Interesting how enjoyment of a movie, or maybe even a vacation and other things, is so closely knit to the exact circumstances of the moment.
Thu 12 Jun
We went to Best Denki at Century Square to take a look at dryers, but were unable to find something we liked. In fact, the salesperson we initially talked to was disappointing. When we asked him what was the difference between the different models and brands, he only could tell us about the load. I think I don't need to be working in a appliances store to know that the number next to "kg" on every dryer tells me the load it can take. Thankfully the next guy at least could tell us something about condenser dryers and functions on the dryers.
We decided to head down to Baby's Kingdom to buy some more baby stuff. During the last visit, we bought a nice cot, but technically the price was just $1 under $300, which was the condition for free delivery. Anyway we had to buy a pair of gates to affix to our staircase (eventually) to prevent accidents when our baby learns to crawl around, and we thought we might as well buy it earlier. We decided to look for bus 15, which a bus driver told us was available at the bus stop behind one of the buildings. It wasn't there, though, and I was quite sure it was available one bus stop down. My wife's feet were sore then, so we flagged down a cab along the walk instead.
That was a mistake.
We got on the Silvercab and told him the address (Kaki Bukit Avenue 1). He looked unsure, and asked us one more time, and wanted to see the name card, but we told him to just get to Kaki Bukit Avenue 1. We went on our way, and although the route he took looked odd, at least it seemed like we were reaching Kaki Bukit. He exited near Kaki Bukit Avenue 4, and drove round in circles almost, and could only reach Avenue 3. He then asked us the address again, and we emphasized that it was Avenue 1, and he took a big round back onto the expressway. We then told him that the location was near a mosque, and he went, "That's not Kaki Bukit what, it's at Bedok already". I was starting to get irritated at that point. Although Kaki Bukit Avenue 1 was just after the edge of Bedok, the mosque was clearly in Kaki Bukit already. Anyway, come on, he didn't need to refer to the mosque to get there right? How can a cab driver be unable to find a whole avenue?
So anyway, he drove us to the mosque area, but he was on the wrong side of the road. He actually told us, "I'll drop you all in front there, and you can cross the bridge" even after we mentioned that the building we were going to was along the opposite road. Wah kau, I pay for cab fare to drop off opposite where I am heading and have a pregnant wife cross the overhead bridge? So I told him to go make a U-turn. He started murmuring a complaint about how far the U-turn in front was, and I was getting pissed. He made the U-turn, and drove along, and when he saw a side gate, he swerved in to drop us off, even after we told him the building number! He said, "You can go in through here."
The gate was closed lor.
I told him firmly but with an irritated tone that the place we were going was further in front (it was one whole bus stop's distance further), so he should drive on. I was already maintaining composure, and he then asked if the place was along one of the side roads in Kaki Bukit and if the address was wrong. Wah biang eh! I was considering saying with dripping sarcasm, "Yeah, the company that printed the name card got its own address wrong" but decided to be nice and said, "No, the address here says it's Avenue 1". The last straw was when he said, "This is not Avenue 1 mah".
I was really pissed. Now he can't even read road signs? It was clearly Kaki Bukit Avenue 1. Come on, if you were wrong, just admit it and say you are sorry about it, and we would be fine. First he made it look like we made him confused by not mentioning the mosque. Then he implied that we got it wrong because the mosque was not in Kaki Bukit, then he asked if we got the address on a name card (we were reading off) wrong, and then he claimed that the road we were on wasn't Avenue 1??? And he wanted to drop us off opposite the road first, and later at an entrance too far off. Whatever happened to "Customers are always right"? He seemed to be the boss and we had to listen to his instructions apparently. Eventually, the detours caused the fare to be about $13+, and the last time we came, from Tampines as well, it costed $9.80. My wife gave him $10 deliberately, and we were prepared to argue if he wanted to take the full amount, but at least the saving grace was that he gracefully took the $10 and said, "No problem".
We were finally at Baby's Kingdom, and we bought the gates along with a sterilizer for the milk bottles. I chanced upon a big tent with plastic balls (like the kind they have at Ikea for the kids to play in), and it was going to be my G12 leader's daughter's one-year birthday on the coming Sunday, so we bought it. We had to head down to cell group, so we decided to take a straight bus to Bukit Merah instead of detouring to Parkway and changing to 197. That took us on a painful hour-plus bus ride. Sigh. These are times I wish I had a car.
Fri 13 Jun
My wife's girls came over to watch One Night with the King and were bunking over. We went over to Elias Mall for dinner before watching it, and after the show I taught them how to play Texas Hold 'Em Up poker using chips but not involving real money. They really enjoyed it, and I think it was very fun, with many surprising spectacular finishes through the night. I think out of the poker games I know, this one is the most fun of all to play.
Sat 14 Jun
I headed off to attend my colleague's wedding in the late morning at Lighthouse Evangelism church. He picked rather interesting worship songs, especially a Hokkien one which sounded quite amusing. There was a huge bunch of students attending the wedding as well, and I think the TA1 kids really dressed up for this. Perhaps it was their first church wedding attended? My poor wife had to go to the gynae to get medication because she got hives from some food allergy (or hormonal changes), so that was why I went to the wedding by myself.
I was almost going to play mahjong in the late afternoon today, but the plans fell through, so I went over to Whitesands and bought a whole batch of movie DVDs. My wife and I watched Underdog first, which we both found to be very entertaining fare. I enjoy talking-animals (the kind that uses CG effects to make it look like the animals were really talking) type of movies, including my all-time favourite Cats and Dogs, and Charlotte's Web.
Sun 15 Jun
There was combined service in the morning, which I knew about three weeks ago, so I had then planned for a...mahjong session afterwards! I brought Collin and shups! to Hi Sshou for a cheap but delicious lunch. Allan came over to join us around 2 pm, and we started our session. Two rounds went by till dinner time, and poor Allan lost money to the rest of us. I won a modest $7, the least of the three. After a disappointing Canadian 2-for-1 pizza dinner, Allan left and we couldn't find a fourth kaki, so Collin, shups! and I resumed two more rounds with three-person mahjong. That was devastating for them, because I won $44 from them even at 10c/20c, and I felt quite bad about it. I think shups! must have felt like I "cheated" her money, because this was the first time she played three-person mahjong.
Mon 16 Jun
I spent most of the day at home doing some work. The lady who sold us the powerful Rainbow vacuum cleaner came down to give a more detailed demonstration, and to explain the uses of some of the more uncommon looking parts. She had no further appointments after us, and hung around quite a long time to chat, and gave us advice on pregnancy stuff. An interesting conversation, especially considering that she was from China. My wife and I then went to Whitesands for dinner at Wan Chai, and came back to do some more work.
We had been watching the movie DVDs we bought in the past few days, and we cleared movies like Eragon, Fantastic Four, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and etc. Now it really feels like a holiday. Heh.
Tue 17 Jun
It was a quiet day today. We had our interior designer visit us to check the kitchen sink and cabinet because it was still leaking a bit, and there was some black dirt thing seemingly falling from the wood. Although I don't know what went wrong, at least the after-sales service of the ID firm is pretty good. Anyway, I asked Ken to help me check the balcony as well, because it was perpetually wet, and I couldn't tell if there was something wrong with the aircon piping, or if it was the water that went into the wall from the guest room that could have flowed down, since the leaking at my guest room stopped overnight suddenly one day a few months ago. Otherwise, I was perfectly happy with my house. Sigh. I seriously hope it isn't the latter, because that would involve the HDB's intervention, and considering my experience with HDB thus far, it means no intervention at all - they would probably tell me it was my own problem and ask me to get a contractor to fix it myself, just like the case of my windows that leaked.
Wed 18 Jun
I had to return to school today to receive about half of the SynTactic card sets from the printing firm, and since I was back there, I arranged for a couple of consultations with my TA1 students, and did some work inbetween. The card sets look pretty good actually, and I am glad I can manage graphic design on my own, so the whole design from concept to appearance was entirely my brainchild. My wife went with me to eat lunch at the food centre opposite the school, and to check out the electric appliances shop there. We were shopping for a dryer, since there was absolutely nowhere we could sun our clothes, and wind-drying wasn't the best solution. In the end, we decided to get an Electrolux dryer, and on top of that, we bought a front-load washing machine as well because the current configuration in my house was more suitable for a vertical outlet pipe (from front-load washing machines) than a horizontal one that traps water (from top-load washing machines). The other reason was that the washing machine in my in-laws' place was getting cranky, so we thought we might as well get a more suitable one for our place, and move our existing washer over.
I headed off to Hair De Vogue to get a haircut because my hair was way too thick. Today I was fortunate because my hairdresser Calvin was just done with his previous customer, so I had negligible waiting time. I think today the guy who shampooed my hair must had been quite free at the point, because he was massaging my head for very, very long. It was very soothing, but it felt like ten minutes had gone by at least. Anyway, Calvin's skill with the scissors was still impressive, and I think now I cannot imagine trading the $25 experience with an average neighbourhood barber's $7 haircut.
Thu 19 Jun
I had a late breakfast to make room for...Japanese buffet! I still think the buffet at Nihon Mura at Downtown East (or maybe the other branches too, but I haven't checked them out yet) is the best deal. The food quality is excellent, and although the menu is not as extensive as, say, Miramar Hotel's Ikoi, but for the items that Nihon Mura has, they all taste delicious. Today's juice of the day was watermelon juice, which was disappointingly not sweet, and the initial order took eons to arrive, because there were many customers, but worst of all was this noisy boy seated next to my table, whom my wife and I both couldn't stand. He was whining half the time, and just making noise for no apparent reason the other half of the time. Anyway, I think the buffet is really worth the money, especially for someone like me who ate about eight portions of salmon, tuna and prawn (amaebi) sashimi, which if based on, say, Sakae Sushi prices, would already be worth the two $16.90++ we paid (after all the ++, it was about $20 per head).
After that we headed down to Bugis, and went to the OG in the area to buy some baby stuff, which individually was quite cheap during the sale, but added up to quite a sum. Once we were done, we made our long way down to TCT at Bukit Merah for our respective cell groups.
Fri 20 Jun
I stayed home today to await the arrival of the new washing machine and dryer. Now the balcony looks quite different, but at least the dryer should solve the issue of not being able to sun the clothes. I was doing research on which dryer brand was better over the internet, and came across this Stomp forum thread where many people living in executive maisonettes were complaining about the lack of bamboo pole holders, and they were ranting about how the design was stupid and etc. It was comforting in a weird way to know that there were fellow sufferers out there.
I only went out in the evening with my wife to Downtown East (again!). We originally wanted to watch a movie, but when we got there, the tickets for Get Smart were selling fast already. I wonder if it is due to the fact that it is still the holidays, or whether weekends will always be this crowded. We went to Mr Chicken Rice once it opened at 5 pm for a satisfying dinner, and I got a Honey Aloe Vera from Cup Walker for a drink, and topped it off with delicious yoghurt from The Yoghurt Place. If you ever go to Downtown East, you should try the yoghurt. I don't quite like yoghurt in general, but the stuff there is really good.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Sat 31 May
I woke up early in the morning, and gave blood brudder Junzhong a morning call, only to find that he was still asleep. I quickly called Shaofeng, who came down to pick me up, and we went on our merry way to Yuren's place. We set off from the happy groom's place early in the morning, and ended up too early, so some of the brothers went for breakfast before we went to get tortured by the sisters at the bride's place. We had to eat the sour (some salted plum thing), sweet (banana dipped in caramel), bitter (blended bittergourd), and spicy (wasabi mixed with chilli padi). We had to pass ice cube with our mouths to each other, use two wax strips on each leg, and wear diapers while doing yoga poses. After that it was a hectic to-and-fro including helping out for tea ceremonies and all.
Inbetween, Junzhong came over to my place to play Xbox 360 for a while. Shaofeng came to pick me up and we went over to Noble House to rehearse, because we were supposed to be the emcees for the night. My wife came along for the dinner, rushing from a colleague's church wedding in the afternoon. This was my fourth time! Man, I should charge money for my professional services. Heh. Everything went well and smoothly, and I guess I had enough experience to fill in the gaps for the moments of silence in the script. The food was quite disappointing though, sadly enough, considering all the good reviews I have heard thus far.
Sun 1 Jun
I went for service and today, instead of cell group, we were having a combined movie outing including my boys, my wife's girls, and my G12 brother Collin's boys. We headed down to Tampines Mall, and were in time for the movie, despite being late. Golden Village had always been predictable in the length of advertisements and trailers (a popular new movie starts about 22 minutes after the stated time), so that, for once, turned out to be a good thing.
We watched Prince Caspian, and I found the movie enjoyable, and in fact, more enjoyable than the first movie. Perhaps the first one was somewhat slower, but this one was chock full of action. I also have a liking for siege scenes, so the battles in this movie fitted that perfectly. I think the moral of the story for this movie felt a bit less obvious, but since Aslan represented the Christ figure, I take it that the plot was trying to convey that if you try to do things yourself in your own way, you risk messing it up big time, but if you depend on God, He will see things through, and save the day. I realize that the treefolk in Prince Caspian were so much more fearsome than the treants in the Lord of the Rings.
Mon 2 Jun
I went back to school early in the morning to start off my Audio Visual Club's camp, and to be general key-keeper for their allocated classrooms. I was working like mad to clear a big chunk of tasks using the free time inbetween, but having to shuttle to-and-fro, sit in, and open the doors for the students and lock up after was pretty disruptive. It didn't help that one of the things I had to do was totally out of my element, and that was to speak at a small conference on Wed, and worse still, about innovation and enterprise. My wife's PDP was having a camp too, so I had her company till about dinnertime, and a colleague took over from her so that she could go home and sleep on a proper bed.
There were many PDPs having camps on the same day, so I had quite some company there. We even squeezed out time here and there to play a bit of recreational mahjong to kill time. I sat in the hustings at night, which went all the way till 11+ pm, and finished the bulk of the slides I needed for Wed, multi-tasking while listening. I met the Exco with my fellow teacher-in-charge, and we discussed the selection of the next generation of executive members till about 2+ am, but to no conclusion. In the end, we had a midnight drill, waking up the contenders at that time to set up the blackbox to assess their skills and judgment. We were done at 3+ am, and went back to discussion. All but my current president agreed on the lineup, so I left at 4.30 am, leaving them to think it through till the next morning.
I headed back to the staffroom, and found my colleagues still awake and waiting for me, so I played mahjong with them till 5.30 am, and caught a nap for 2 hours.
Tue 3 Jun
I woke up at 7.30 am and went for breakfast with a whole bunch of colleagues. I came back, and did more work till about noon where we had a meeting with the college leaders regarding the camp. I went out to grab a quick lunch, and waited for my principal, because she wanted to find out more about my card game, and how the college could support it, so in the end, she offered to subsidize the price for the students if they were to buy, and made it really affordable.
I went to Lerk Thai with my wife for dinner after I took a nap, and it was comforting to have a good meal after two wearying days. I also spotted a nice pair of three-quarts from Bum Equipment. I headed home and rehearsed for my presentation tomorrow morning. It is one thing to give a chemistry lecture to hundreds of students who are not familiar, but to talk about entrepreneurship is another ball game altogether.
Wed 4 Jun
My colleague met us at Newton MRT station to pick us up to head down to Metropolitan YMCA. In actual fact, the event going on was the Exoro Game challenge, which involved teams from junior colleges, polytechnics, and ITEs. I am well acquainted with the founders of Exoro company, and since I also created an educational game like they did, they got me to give a talk. Or maybe they couldn't find anyone else...haha. I was actually supposed to talk in the morning, but the afternoon speaker couldn't make it last minute, so I had to do two rounds. And each talk was scheduled to be one and a half hours long! I couldn't quite believe it, because it would be almost impossible to hold anyone's attention for that long. My wife had joined me, and thankfully she did, because I only found out there and then that I couldn't click the slides myself, and since she heard me rehearse through the slides last night, at least she had an inkling of what would be the sequence and flow.
Actually, I think the audience was wrong. Nothing wrong with them in themselves, but that half of them wouldn't have taken 'A' level chemistry, and those from junior colleges may be from the first year and wouldn't have encountered organic chemistry in full measure, so at the points in time I was talking about my game, most of them looked lost, and I don't blame them. Still, I took it as a practice for future presentations, which are definitely imminent. Considering that I didn't prepare a script to read from, I think I held out pretty well, talking almost impromptu for about fifty minutes at least. The best part of the day would be the time inbetween both talks where my colleague joined my wife and I to Far East Plaza to do some shopping, and I ended up with two funky shirts that I will try to wear to school next term. Heh.
Thu 5 Jun
I was heading off to Muar tomorrow with my church mates, and we decided to go shopping after our trip to the gynae for a checkup. We were both disappointed that there was only a audio scan for the baby's heartbeat and no ultrasound, because we were both curious how big he had grown. We met my mother-in-law at Bugis MRT when she was heading to work, and we went to the hawker centre there to eat the claypot rice, which was very good and cheap, considering all the generous portion of sausages, chicken and salted fish (both were of good quality, and not the cheap kind). After that, we went to OG to check out the baby stuff, but I managed to spot a nice haversack there, which I bought, because I threw my previous old one away. We also bought a food warmer and some other miscellaneous stuff for the baby. Then we headed back because I needed to pack for the next morning.
Fri 6 Jun
I went to the bus depot opposite Casket Palace to board the coach to Muar. Apparently the timing they gave us was a conservative 45 minutes too early, so we waited quite a while. There was a slight jam at the causeway, but otherwise it didn't take very long to clear the customs as I was originally anticipating. I slept through most of the coach journey, which stretched for about 4 hours because our church people didn't occupy the whole bus and the coach had to make several stops for people to get off or on.
We reached the prayer house at Muar at about 2 pm and had our catered lunch. It was quite a free-and-easy retreat, and not overly packed with sessions, so we had time to mix around, chitchat and bond. We went to a nearby 'hawker centre' kind of place to grab dinner, so we ordered a bit of everything, like char kway teow, hokkien mee (which looked just like mee goreng), satay, stingray, and etc, but seriously, the food sucked, and could not compare to the good stuff back in Singapore.
I felt the presence of God there, and a music video that showed scenes from Passion of the Christ made me cry hard. God spoke to me about quite a few things, so it was a fruitful trip after all. After the night session was over, my two G12 brothers, Collin and Eric, finally arrived at around midnight. They said they weren't sleepy, so we ended up playing dai di till 2+ in the morning.
Sat 7 Jun
After breakfast, we had a morning session, and after lunch, another session. At around 3.30 pm, we were released to film a short video on the Sabbath, and I think my group had a right balance of people, and we made something quite entertaining in the end. We even went out to get stationery to prepare some props for the video. We had a quick dinner at a zi char place right outside the prayer house, and went back for a last session and a showing of the videos from all the groups. Since it was the last night, a whole lot of us stayed up. We played a few rounds of 99 to get people to drink up some unfinished drinks as forfeit. Then a few of us stayed up to play Texas Hold 'Em Up poker using peanuts as chips, and that was really fun. I think that is the best poker game I know at the moment.
Sun 8 Jun
The rest packed up and left at 7+ am. I was taking Eric's car back to Singapore, so we hung around a bit later, and went to a dim sum place for a nice and heavy breakfast before setting off. I dozed off a little, but for most of the journey back we were all talking happily in the car. The customs didn't take long to clear, and Eric dropped me off at Clementi, and I took the train back home. I was so tired, but I couldn't get a seat. For some reason, all the passengers where I was standing at didn't get off till Eunos at least. The moment I sat down, I concussed all the way till I hit Pasir Ris. I went home, dumped my bag, and headed off to Whitesands with my wife to grab a quick lunch before rushing down to Expo for service.
I postponed my cell group till Tuesday when my boys would come over to play, and went to check out the John Little sale and the Motherhood fair at Expo Hall 5. I bought bermudas and shorts, towels and other miscellaneous items at John Little side, and we bought some items at the Motherhood fair as well. I think the organizers need to rent a bigger space than just half a hall. The space between booths was so narrow, and typically those going to such fairs are pregnant, pushing prams, have toddlers or young kids in tow, or a mixture of these, and it was exceedingly cramped.
Mon 9 Jun
I went to Elias Mall to have breakfast with my wife, and headed home for a nap. In the afternoon, we went out with my sister-in-law and my wife's young cousin to celebrate the little girl's birthday. We checked out this place called Nihon Mura at Downtown East's E!Hub, fifth floor. At first, I was thinking that there's finally a decent Japanese food place next to a Kbox until I realized it was also owned by Suki group, which is linked to Kbox. In any case, Nihon Mura has a teatime buffet from 2.30 to 5.30 pm (last order at 5 pm), and it only costs $16.90 for adults, $14.90 for students, and $9.90 for kids. The best thing is that the ala carte menu included in the buffet contains sashimi as well! Not like the cheapo Sakae Sushi, which only includes the coloured plates. I was just hoping for average food, but the food there turned out to be exceptionally good!
I had various sashimi, including salmon, tuna, tai and amaebi (prawn), and they were all fresh. The salmon served was fairly near the belly, so had belts of fat. The tuna had good texture as well, and was better than any tuna sashimi I have had so far. The amaebi was really good too, and did not have the sliminess feel that I usually detect. The handrolls were superb! The californian handroll had thick slabs of avocado, egg, and real crab meat. The soft shell crab handroll had a huge chunk of soft shell crab, and was extremely tasty. The chawanmushi was good too, and the shitake mushrooms were grilled really well, and the teriyaki sauce they came in tasted fantastic too. We ordered almost everything on the menu, and they all tasted great. We were very impressed. The buffet came with a juice-of-the-day for each persoin, and it wasn't the kind from the bottle, but was freshly squeezed (today's one was orange) in a large glass. The buffet had free flow of tea and soft drinks too, and this had to be the most worth-it buffet I have had, considering the quality of the food and the price. In fact, the restaurant had many other items not on the buffet menu, and boasted a range of food that a proper Japanese restaurant typically has. I will definitely return, and I foresee a gradual fattening. Sigh.
We then went to watch Kungfu Panda, and although the storyline was predictable, and the movie was generally quite cliche (typical Hollywood underachiever-who-proves-himself kind of animation), the delivery was good. There were many humorous moments, and generally the movie played homage to kungfu roots rather than making a mockery of it, so I thought it was enjoyable, even for an adult. A good movie to bring kids to definitely. One kid actually blurted out very loudly at one scene where the main villain and protagonist faced off, "Now we'll see who will win!!"
I woke up early in the morning, and gave blood brudder Junzhong a morning call, only to find that he was still asleep. I quickly called Shaofeng, who came down to pick me up, and we went on our merry way to Yuren's place. We set off from the happy groom's place early in the morning, and ended up too early, so some of the brothers went for breakfast before we went to get tortured by the sisters at the bride's place. We had to eat the sour (some salted plum thing), sweet (banana dipped in caramel), bitter (blended bittergourd), and spicy (wasabi mixed with chilli padi). We had to pass ice cube with our mouths to each other, use two wax strips on each leg, and wear diapers while doing yoga poses. After that it was a hectic to-and-fro including helping out for tea ceremonies and all.
Inbetween, Junzhong came over to my place to play Xbox 360 for a while. Shaofeng came to pick me up and we went over to Noble House to rehearse, because we were supposed to be the emcees for the night. My wife came along for the dinner, rushing from a colleague's church wedding in the afternoon. This was my fourth time! Man, I should charge money for my professional services. Heh. Everything went well and smoothly, and I guess I had enough experience to fill in the gaps for the moments of silence in the script. The food was quite disappointing though, sadly enough, considering all the good reviews I have heard thus far.
Sun 1 Jun
I went for service and today, instead of cell group, we were having a combined movie outing including my boys, my wife's girls, and my G12 brother Collin's boys. We headed down to Tampines Mall, and were in time for the movie, despite being late. Golden Village had always been predictable in the length of advertisements and trailers (a popular new movie starts about 22 minutes after the stated time), so that, for once, turned out to be a good thing.
We watched Prince Caspian, and I found the movie enjoyable, and in fact, more enjoyable than the first movie. Perhaps the first one was somewhat slower, but this one was chock full of action. I also have a liking for siege scenes, so the battles in this movie fitted that perfectly. I think the moral of the story for this movie felt a bit less obvious, but since Aslan represented the Christ figure, I take it that the plot was trying to convey that if you try to do things yourself in your own way, you risk messing it up big time, but if you depend on God, He will see things through, and save the day. I realize that the treefolk in Prince Caspian were so much more fearsome than the treants in the Lord of the Rings.
Mon 2 Jun
I went back to school early in the morning to start off my Audio Visual Club's camp, and to be general key-keeper for their allocated classrooms. I was working like mad to clear a big chunk of tasks using the free time inbetween, but having to shuttle to-and-fro, sit in, and open the doors for the students and lock up after was pretty disruptive. It didn't help that one of the things I had to do was totally out of my element, and that was to speak at a small conference on Wed, and worse still, about innovation and enterprise. My wife's PDP was having a camp too, so I had her company till about dinnertime, and a colleague took over from her so that she could go home and sleep on a proper bed.
There were many PDPs having camps on the same day, so I had quite some company there. We even squeezed out time here and there to play a bit of recreational mahjong to kill time. I sat in the hustings at night, which went all the way till 11+ pm, and finished the bulk of the slides I needed for Wed, multi-tasking while listening. I met the Exco with my fellow teacher-in-charge, and we discussed the selection of the next generation of executive members till about 2+ am, but to no conclusion. In the end, we had a midnight drill, waking up the contenders at that time to set up the blackbox to assess their skills and judgment. We were done at 3+ am, and went back to discussion. All but my current president agreed on the lineup, so I left at 4.30 am, leaving them to think it through till the next morning.
I headed back to the staffroom, and found my colleagues still awake and waiting for me, so I played mahjong with them till 5.30 am, and caught a nap for 2 hours.
Tue 3 Jun
I woke up at 7.30 am and went for breakfast with a whole bunch of colleagues. I came back, and did more work till about noon where we had a meeting with the college leaders regarding the camp. I went out to grab a quick lunch, and waited for my principal, because she wanted to find out more about my card game, and how the college could support it, so in the end, she offered to subsidize the price for the students if they were to buy, and made it really affordable.
I went to Lerk Thai with my wife for dinner after I took a nap, and it was comforting to have a good meal after two wearying days. I also spotted a nice pair of three-quarts from Bum Equipment. I headed home and rehearsed for my presentation tomorrow morning. It is one thing to give a chemistry lecture to hundreds of students who are not familiar, but to talk about entrepreneurship is another ball game altogether.
Wed 4 Jun
My colleague met us at Newton MRT station to pick us up to head down to Metropolitan YMCA. In actual fact, the event going on was the Exoro Game challenge, which involved teams from junior colleges, polytechnics, and ITEs. I am well acquainted with the founders of Exoro company, and since I also created an educational game like they did, they got me to give a talk. Or maybe they couldn't find anyone else...haha. I was actually supposed to talk in the morning, but the afternoon speaker couldn't make it last minute, so I had to do two rounds. And each talk was scheduled to be one and a half hours long! I couldn't quite believe it, because it would be almost impossible to hold anyone's attention for that long. My wife had joined me, and thankfully she did, because I only found out there and then that I couldn't click the slides myself, and since she heard me rehearse through the slides last night, at least she had an inkling of what would be the sequence and flow.
Actually, I think the audience was wrong. Nothing wrong with them in themselves, but that half of them wouldn't have taken 'A' level chemistry, and those from junior colleges may be from the first year and wouldn't have encountered organic chemistry in full measure, so at the points in time I was talking about my game, most of them looked lost, and I don't blame them. Still, I took it as a practice for future presentations, which are definitely imminent. Considering that I didn't prepare a script to read from, I think I held out pretty well, talking almost impromptu for about fifty minutes at least. The best part of the day would be the time inbetween both talks where my colleague joined my wife and I to Far East Plaza to do some shopping, and I ended up with two funky shirts that I will try to wear to school next term. Heh.
Thu 5 Jun
I was heading off to Muar tomorrow with my church mates, and we decided to go shopping after our trip to the gynae for a checkup. We were both disappointed that there was only a audio scan for the baby's heartbeat and no ultrasound, because we were both curious how big he had grown. We met my mother-in-law at Bugis MRT when she was heading to work, and we went to the hawker centre there to eat the claypot rice, which was very good and cheap, considering all the generous portion of sausages, chicken and salted fish (both were of good quality, and not the cheap kind). After that, we went to OG to check out the baby stuff, but I managed to spot a nice haversack there, which I bought, because I threw my previous old one away. We also bought a food warmer and some other miscellaneous stuff for the baby. Then we headed back because I needed to pack for the next morning.
Fri 6 Jun
I went to the bus depot opposite Casket Palace to board the coach to Muar. Apparently the timing they gave us was a conservative 45 minutes too early, so we waited quite a while. There was a slight jam at the causeway, but otherwise it didn't take very long to clear the customs as I was originally anticipating. I slept through most of the coach journey, which stretched for about 4 hours because our church people didn't occupy the whole bus and the coach had to make several stops for people to get off or on.
We reached the prayer house at Muar at about 2 pm and had our catered lunch. It was quite a free-and-easy retreat, and not overly packed with sessions, so we had time to mix around, chitchat and bond. We went to a nearby 'hawker centre' kind of place to grab dinner, so we ordered a bit of everything, like char kway teow, hokkien mee (which looked just like mee goreng), satay, stingray, and etc, but seriously, the food sucked, and could not compare to the good stuff back in Singapore.
I felt the presence of God there, and a music video that showed scenes from Passion of the Christ made me cry hard. God spoke to me about quite a few things, so it was a fruitful trip after all. After the night session was over, my two G12 brothers, Collin and Eric, finally arrived at around midnight. They said they weren't sleepy, so we ended up playing dai di till 2+ in the morning.
Sat 7 Jun
After breakfast, we had a morning session, and after lunch, another session. At around 3.30 pm, we were released to film a short video on the Sabbath, and I think my group had a right balance of people, and we made something quite entertaining in the end. We even went out to get stationery to prepare some props for the video. We had a quick dinner at a zi char place right outside the prayer house, and went back for a last session and a showing of the videos from all the groups. Since it was the last night, a whole lot of us stayed up. We played a few rounds of 99 to get people to drink up some unfinished drinks as forfeit. Then a few of us stayed up to play Texas Hold 'Em Up poker using peanuts as chips, and that was really fun. I think that is the best poker game I know at the moment.
Sun 8 Jun
The rest packed up and left at 7+ am. I was taking Eric's car back to Singapore, so we hung around a bit later, and went to a dim sum place for a nice and heavy breakfast before setting off. I dozed off a little, but for most of the journey back we were all talking happily in the car. The customs didn't take long to clear, and Eric dropped me off at Clementi, and I took the train back home. I was so tired, but I couldn't get a seat. For some reason, all the passengers where I was standing at didn't get off till Eunos at least. The moment I sat down, I concussed all the way till I hit Pasir Ris. I went home, dumped my bag, and headed off to Whitesands with my wife to grab a quick lunch before rushing down to Expo for service.
I postponed my cell group till Tuesday when my boys would come over to play, and went to check out the John Little sale and the Motherhood fair at Expo Hall 5. I bought bermudas and shorts, towels and other miscellaneous items at John Little side, and we bought some items at the Motherhood fair as well. I think the organizers need to rent a bigger space than just half a hall. The space between booths was so narrow, and typically those going to such fairs are pregnant, pushing prams, have toddlers or young kids in tow, or a mixture of these, and it was exceedingly cramped.
Mon 9 Jun
I went to Elias Mall to have breakfast with my wife, and headed home for a nap. In the afternoon, we went out with my sister-in-law and my wife's young cousin to celebrate the little girl's birthday. We checked out this place called Nihon Mura at Downtown East's E!Hub, fifth floor. At first, I was thinking that there's finally a decent Japanese food place next to a Kbox until I realized it was also owned by Suki group, which is linked to Kbox. In any case, Nihon Mura has a teatime buffet from 2.30 to 5.30 pm (last order at 5 pm), and it only costs $16.90 for adults, $14.90 for students, and $9.90 for kids. The best thing is that the ala carte menu included in the buffet contains sashimi as well! Not like the cheapo Sakae Sushi, which only includes the coloured plates. I was just hoping for average food, but the food there turned out to be exceptionally good!
I had various sashimi, including salmon, tuna, tai and amaebi (prawn), and they were all fresh. The salmon served was fairly near the belly, so had belts of fat. The tuna had good texture as well, and was better than any tuna sashimi I have had so far. The amaebi was really good too, and did not have the sliminess feel that I usually detect. The handrolls were superb! The californian handroll had thick slabs of avocado, egg, and real crab meat. The soft shell crab handroll had a huge chunk of soft shell crab, and was extremely tasty. The chawanmushi was good too, and the shitake mushrooms were grilled really well, and the teriyaki sauce they came in tasted fantastic too. We ordered almost everything on the menu, and they all tasted great. We were very impressed. The buffet came with a juice-of-the-day for each persoin, and it wasn't the kind from the bottle, but was freshly squeezed (today's one was orange) in a large glass. The buffet had free flow of tea and soft drinks too, and this had to be the most worth-it buffet I have had, considering the quality of the food and the price. In fact, the restaurant had many other items not on the buffet menu, and boasted a range of food that a proper Japanese restaurant typically has. I will definitely return, and I foresee a gradual fattening. Sigh.
We then went to watch Kungfu Panda, and although the storyline was predictable, and the movie was generally quite cliche (typical Hollywood underachiever-who-proves-himself kind of animation), the delivery was good. There were many humorous moments, and generally the movie played homage to kungfu roots rather than making a mockery of it, so I thought it was enjoyable, even for an adult. A good movie to bring kids to definitely. One kid actually blurted out very loudly at one scene where the main villain and protagonist faced off, "Now we'll see who will win!!"