Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tue 23 Jun
I had a heavy breakfast at MacDonalds', and spent the rest of the day with Jadon.
Sometimes I have weird ideas - conspiracy theories to be precise. I was just wondering: what if SARS and H1N1 are experimental biological weapons? Maybe there is some terrorist organization, or pharmaceutical company (which developed a vaccine), or some military organization out there that developed this virus, and sent it out for testing? SARS was a deadly virus, but because it killed the carriers fairly effectively, the virus couldn't travel very far and very wide. H1N1 was the next incarnation to test how far a pandemic can reach, so it is a less deadly, more easily spread version. In that case, in subsequent years, we should see a fairly lethal (but maybe take longer to kill) strain that could spread fast, far and wide. Hmmm. I think I love the storyline of 20th Century Boys too much. Haha.
Wed 24 Jun
I had driving at 8 am in the morning, and I was so barely awake that I feared being a road hazard. Fortunately my instructor today was very chatty, so talking kept me sufficiently awake. He made me practise turning again and again so that I could get my hand movements right and become more nimble. He made me do many 3-point turns, which although not tested, he said would help me be more nimble. After that, I had lunch at the Botak Jones coffeeshop and my wife had Pilcolo pasta, and we spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place.
Thu 25 Jun
It was a long day today. There was a meeting in the morning in school involving all the staff, which stretched till almost noon. I grabbed lunch with my wife, and then headed back for a series of consultations till almost 4 pm. After that, I stayed in the staff room to finish some work, and in the evening, I made my way to Bedok Camp for Remedial Training.
Today's session was quite amusing. Because of the incident at Maju Camp, there was temperature taking outside the camp. We also needed to fill a travel declaration form, and because there was an IPPT test for the Phase II trainees, it was one long messy queue. I was there punctually, so I was done quickly, and I went to the warmup area to wait.
And waited I did. The warmup session was due to start at 6.30 pm originally, but the whole thing was delayed to 7.30 pm! When the PTI (Physical Training Instructor) came, he actually said that it was quite late, and that it was no point having training! He offered to train those who wanted it, and the rest could just sit back and relax. I couldn't quite believe it. But the most amazing thing was that everyone of us went forward, so he had no choice but to conduct training with the remaining time. I think after waiting one hour, we all thought it would be quite pathetic to stay and wait some more and tell people we did absolutely nothing.
At night, my wife felt hungry, so we went to MacDonald's for supper. We tried this new cinnamon melts thing, and it was delicious, but very sweet. I will definitely order it again another time.
Fri 26 Jun
I was at my in-laws' place as usual. For lunch, I was with my wife at 216 market, and I had nasi lemak from Hon Ni Kitchen, and the favourite ice lemon tea. We went shopping for stuff, namely a water pipe to replace a leaking one for my shower system. On the way, I spotted bags being sold at Song & Song. Since my current bag was old, and now the strap was soaked with sweat every Remedial Training, I bought a new Adidas bag for $30.
Sat 27 Jun
I spent the whole day in my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon.
Sun 28 Jun
I went to Simei to have a heavy breakfast at the NTUC foodfare and ate my staple fishball noodles before heading off to church service. I spent most of the time ministering to one of my boys, so I guess I'd better hear the sermon online to make up for it. I left slightly earlier with my wife and Collin, because today there was a special event. Collin is my financial advisor from Finexis, and his company was having a movie treat for the clients, at least those who were interested.
We rushed down to The Cathay, and the parking was so full that Collin dropped us off first and he went hunting for lots himself. We watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen! The best thing was that the movie treat included a bag of popcorn and a can of coke for each person. I had read mixed reviews on the movie, and the ones that rated it poorly talked about it being oversexed, over-crude and indecision on its genre. Well, I think I was just interested in the cgi, so the movie delivered brilliantly. I like how the current transformers franchise had made the robots more detailed and organic looking than the original cartoon counterparts. There was plenty of action, but my personal gripe was that there were too many robots. In fact, I would describe it as too many calefare robots. There were some that appeared without ever being named, introduced or referred to, and they were there just to get shot down or blown up. Especially the Decepticons' side, many of which were indistinguishable from one another. I think the Devastator looked spectacular. I used to have a set of Constructicons (I think that's the name, I vaguely remember) so that was nostalgic, but the current one in the movie looked way more bestial. The other gripe was the female robot (possible spoiler, be forewarned). I think the movie crossed bad territory here. In the old series, I don't recall there being any robot that can fully become an ordinary-looking human. The closest toy would probably be an armoured humanoid form. When that pretender showed up in the movie, for a while, I thought I was watching Terminator series of something.
After the movie, I booked a cab to rush down to Bedok Camp for Remedial Training. Today's training was a bit more intense, and we ran a total of 2.8 km. My legs were aching after that, and still had to chase after Jadon here and there. He has adorable actions these days. When we ask him to help us look for something, he will bend down very low and look under the couch, chair or other places.
I had a heavy breakfast at MacDonalds', and spent the rest of the day with Jadon.
Sometimes I have weird ideas - conspiracy theories to be precise. I was just wondering: what if SARS and H1N1 are experimental biological weapons? Maybe there is some terrorist organization, or pharmaceutical company (which developed a vaccine), or some military organization out there that developed this virus, and sent it out for testing? SARS was a deadly virus, but because it killed the carriers fairly effectively, the virus couldn't travel very far and very wide. H1N1 was the next incarnation to test how far a pandemic can reach, so it is a less deadly, more easily spread version. In that case, in subsequent years, we should see a fairly lethal (but maybe take longer to kill) strain that could spread fast, far and wide. Hmmm. I think I love the storyline of 20th Century Boys too much. Haha.
Wed 24 Jun
I had driving at 8 am in the morning, and I was so barely awake that I feared being a road hazard. Fortunately my instructor today was very chatty, so talking kept me sufficiently awake. He made me practise turning again and again so that I could get my hand movements right and become more nimble. He made me do many 3-point turns, which although not tested, he said would help me be more nimble. After that, I had lunch at the Botak Jones coffeeshop and my wife had Pilcolo pasta, and we spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place.
Thu 25 Jun
It was a long day today. There was a meeting in the morning in school involving all the staff, which stretched till almost noon. I grabbed lunch with my wife, and then headed back for a series of consultations till almost 4 pm. After that, I stayed in the staff room to finish some work, and in the evening, I made my way to Bedok Camp for Remedial Training.
Today's session was quite amusing. Because of the incident at Maju Camp, there was temperature taking outside the camp. We also needed to fill a travel declaration form, and because there was an IPPT test for the Phase II trainees, it was one long messy queue. I was there punctually, so I was done quickly, and I went to the warmup area to wait.
And waited I did. The warmup session was due to start at 6.30 pm originally, but the whole thing was delayed to 7.30 pm! When the PTI (Physical Training Instructor) came, he actually said that it was quite late, and that it was no point having training! He offered to train those who wanted it, and the rest could just sit back and relax. I couldn't quite believe it. But the most amazing thing was that everyone of us went forward, so he had no choice but to conduct training with the remaining time. I think after waiting one hour, we all thought it would be quite pathetic to stay and wait some more and tell people we did absolutely nothing.
At night, my wife felt hungry, so we went to MacDonald's for supper. We tried this new cinnamon melts thing, and it was delicious, but very sweet. I will definitely order it again another time.
Fri 26 Jun
I was at my in-laws' place as usual. For lunch, I was with my wife at 216 market, and I had nasi lemak from Hon Ni Kitchen, and the favourite ice lemon tea. We went shopping for stuff, namely a water pipe to replace a leaking one for my shower system. On the way, I spotted bags being sold at Song & Song. Since my current bag was old, and now the strap was soaked with sweat every Remedial Training, I bought a new Adidas bag for $30.
Sat 27 Jun
I spent the whole day in my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon.
Sun 28 Jun
I went to Simei to have a heavy breakfast at the NTUC foodfare and ate my staple fishball noodles before heading off to church service. I spent most of the time ministering to one of my boys, so I guess I'd better hear the sermon online to make up for it. I left slightly earlier with my wife and Collin, because today there was a special event. Collin is my financial advisor from Finexis, and his company was having a movie treat for the clients, at least those who were interested.
We rushed down to The Cathay, and the parking was so full that Collin dropped us off first and he went hunting for lots himself. We watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen! The best thing was that the movie treat included a bag of popcorn and a can of coke for each person. I had read mixed reviews on the movie, and the ones that rated it poorly talked about it being oversexed, over-crude and indecision on its genre. Well, I think I was just interested in the cgi, so the movie delivered brilliantly. I like how the current transformers franchise had made the robots more detailed and organic looking than the original cartoon counterparts. There was plenty of action, but my personal gripe was that there were too many robots. In fact, I would describe it as too many calefare robots. There were some that appeared without ever being named, introduced or referred to, and they were there just to get shot down or blown up. Especially the Decepticons' side, many of which were indistinguishable from one another. I think the Devastator looked spectacular. I used to have a set of Constructicons (I think that's the name, I vaguely remember) so that was nostalgic, but the current one in the movie looked way more bestial. The other gripe was the female robot (possible spoiler, be forewarned). I think the movie crossed bad territory here. In the old series, I don't recall there being any robot that can fully become an ordinary-looking human. The closest toy would probably be an armoured humanoid form. When that pretender showed up in the movie, for a while, I thought I was watching Terminator series of something.
After the movie, I booked a cab to rush down to Bedok Camp for Remedial Training. Today's training was a bit more intense, and we ran a total of 2.8 km. My legs were aching after that, and still had to chase after Jadon here and there. He has adorable actions these days. When we ask him to help us look for something, he will bend down very low and look under the couch, chair or other places.
Monday, June 22, 2009
I went back to school today for consultation with a student, and to finish up some administrative work. After I was done, I went to meet my wife for lunch at Spaghedies. The dory I had was quite good, especially the mushroom sauce. I liked my wife's lasagne too, but she actually preferred Pizza Hut's one, which I find too much of a mash of everything. The lasagne here was well-textured, and you can taste each layer distinctly, which I feel took better skill to prepare.
I spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place with Jadon, who was now much better. He had regained much of his appetite, and at least would laugh when I played with him. I think no one but a parent can empathize with the pain felt when a child is sick.
Anyway, it turned out that I was wrong about The Ultimatum. Felicia Chin was just physically abused, and no rape was involved. Sexuality was exchanged for sadism, so I must had been mistaken about the scriptwriters.
I spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place with Jadon, who was now much better. He had regained much of his appetite, and at least would laugh when I played with him. I think no one but a parent can empathize with the pain felt when a child is sick.
Anyway, it turned out that I was wrong about The Ultimatum. Felicia Chin was just physically abused, and no rape was involved. Sexuality was exchanged for sadism, so I must had been mistaken about the scriptwriters.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tue 16 Jun
My wife and I spent the whole day at my in-laws' place. There at least is some free time during the holidays for us to spend quality time with Jadon, and for that, I am extremely grateful.
Wed 17 Jun
I had breakfast with my wife at 216 market and ate my usual you mian before heading down for my driving lessons. My instructor made me end the lesson opposite the driving centre so that I could go apply for a practical test day, and I ended up with 6 October! It was a lot later than I would have wanted. So let's just see how much bigger my wife's belly will grow, and hope that she can still drive till that date at least.
I came back to Bedok and bought some stuff before going to my in-laws' place. My wife and I had dinner at the Botak Jones coffeeshop nearby, and I ordered baked rice from Piilcolo (can't remember the spelling, since the sign looks terribly misleading), which turned out to be really good. I definitely like it a lot more than the pasta. We also shared a fish and chips, and after that, we headed down to Expo for our church's prayer meeting.
Thu 18 Jun
Today was spent on some housework, and then Remedial Training at Bedok Camp. To my horror, the training now seemed tougher than the last time I was there, and dragged longer. I remember it used to end by about 8.30, but now it ended at about 9 pm. So I bought my dinner from Bedok Food Centre (I think that's the name), and went to my in-laws' place to see Jadon. Hmm, I think it's more appropriate to call it supper since I reached there only around 9.50 pm.
Fri 19 Jun
My wife and I went to White Sands to buy some stuff we need at home, and we had lunch at Lerk Thai after much deliberation. We used to really like the food there, but there were two occasions we went there and the food was terrible. I guess they must had changed the chef at that point. We gave it another chance, and today's food was fabulous. So Lerk Thai has regained its status as 'possible food joint in White Sands'.
I went back home and was saddened to discover my hamster Beckham had died. Recently he showed sudden signs of debilitation, and I thought it was a bad sign, but I didn't expect it to be so soon. He suddenly looked extremely scrawny, and couldn't open his eyes much. Then I discovered two days ago that his rear was stained with urine, like he couldn't control his bladder or something. His body was still warm when I found him, so I suppose he died a short while ago. In an odd way his paws were clasped together like he was praying.
So ironically, the murderer hamster remained the last surviving one.
At night, J, Collin and Alvin came over to play mahjong overnight. We played for two rounds, and got too hungry so we ordered in McDonalds for supper, and played another round. Alvin was the big winner tonight, almost clearing out J's drawer, and mine was on the way to emptiness. His luck was so ridiculously good it was demoralizing to play because he just kept winning. Fast. And big. When your luck is that incredible, you don't even need your brains to play. We finished at about 4+ to 5 am, and I eventually slept at 6.
Sat 20 Jun
Although I was dead tired from the mahjong, I went over as early as I could to my in-laws' place. It was perfect timing that my wife decided to stay over at her parents' place as she didn't want my mahjong to disturb her and that she wanted to spend more time with Jadon, because Jadon fell ill and was running a fever.
Finally, Kah Motors' garage side called me, and told me the car was repaired, so my wife and I headed there to collect our car in the afternoon. We went home to take some stuff, and then headed down to Ikea. We wanted to replace the dining chairs in our living room for quite a while already. Apparently the PVC leather had started cracking and flaking quite badly, so we wanted to buy something that had no cushion. We shortlisted one dark brown wooden chair with chrome legs originally, but I still didn't like them much. In the end, we bought a totally plastic orange chair, which I guess could still loosely fit the colour scheme, but I think I need some other accessories to blend them in the decor fully.
After dropping off the purchases at home, we went down to my in-laws' place to check on Jadon. He was running a fever of 38.2 degrees Celsius quite consistently, so at night when the fever still didn't recede after we fed him some medicine we had from before for him, we brought him to the GP we usually go to. At the clinic entrance, the nurse took Jadon's aural temperature, and it was 39.4! Straightaway we drove down to KK Hospital to the Child Emergency section. Only two were allowed in, so I waited outside and played some games on my ipod to kill time. After a long while, my wife called to tell me that they were waiting for Jadon's blood test result. Eventually, the diagnosis was that he had a bacterial infection, so had to be prescribed antibiotics. Now this was the point when things cocked up. The doctor prescribed syrup based antibiotics, which made sense since Jadon was only ten months old. The pharmacy nurses said they no longer had such stock as there was no supply. What the heck??? Then the nurse gave my wife antibiotic tablets. For goodness' sake, how is a ten month old baby going to swallow a full sized tablet? My wife, now irritated, went back to the doctor and asked for an alternative prescription. The nurse at the pharmacy also said she would go consult the medical books. After wasting a whole lot of time, finally we got a different medicine. My wife wanted to write this down on a feedback form, and to her shock, she found only one form left, and it had scribblings on it.
Suddenly we had a lower opinion of KK Hospital.
By the time we got back to my in-laws' place it was about 2 am. By the time I helped wash the milk bottles and stuff, I took a cab and reached home only near 3 am. Hmm. Recent weekends were all sleep-deprived, I realized.
Sun 21 Jun
I skipped church service today and went straight to my in-laws' place to help them out. Apparently last night Jadon was crying most of the time and my wife and mother-in-law hardly got any sleep, so I spent Fathers' Day doing a father's job, which I guess was pretty apt. Thank God his fever completely subsided today, but he was still crying (and drooling) frequently probably because he was teething.
In the afternoon, after trying to catch a few power naps when Jadon was momentarily asleep, I headed down to Bedok Camp for my Remedial Training. Although this is certainly not a good thing for a man to get, at least it forces me to exercise when I don't have the time nor discipline to. Today's training had so much running my legs were really feeling it. Anyway, no surprise, since the army style of training is focused on overloading.
I bought dinner back for everyone, including my aunt-in-law and cousin-in-law (sounds odd), and spent the time either helping out with taking care of Jadon or in the meantime, watching the longlasting Taiwanese soap. Incidentally, I just realized from the trailers of The Ultimatum that I had missed quite a few episodes. Mediacorp certainly doesn't disappoint my claim that there is a rape in every serial. This one has two! One happened in the past apparently perpetrated by Ye Songnian, and the other one (I think Mediacorp is taking it up one notch) is a gang rape I think (I didn't watch it, but from the previews before the serial started showing, I think it is). I really think that the scriptwriters must have some devious scheme to screen-rape every single popular Mediacorp actress.
My wife and I spent the whole day at my in-laws' place. There at least is some free time during the holidays for us to spend quality time with Jadon, and for that, I am extremely grateful.
Wed 17 Jun
I had breakfast with my wife at 216 market and ate my usual you mian before heading down for my driving lessons. My instructor made me end the lesson opposite the driving centre so that I could go apply for a practical test day, and I ended up with 6 October! It was a lot later than I would have wanted. So let's just see how much bigger my wife's belly will grow, and hope that she can still drive till that date at least.
I came back to Bedok and bought some stuff before going to my in-laws' place. My wife and I had dinner at the Botak Jones coffeeshop nearby, and I ordered baked rice from Piilcolo (can't remember the spelling, since the sign looks terribly misleading), which turned out to be really good. I definitely like it a lot more than the pasta. We also shared a fish and chips, and after that, we headed down to Expo for our church's prayer meeting.
Thu 18 Jun
Today was spent on some housework, and then Remedial Training at Bedok Camp. To my horror, the training now seemed tougher than the last time I was there, and dragged longer. I remember it used to end by about 8.30, but now it ended at about 9 pm. So I bought my dinner from Bedok Food Centre (I think that's the name), and went to my in-laws' place to see Jadon. Hmm, I think it's more appropriate to call it supper since I reached there only around 9.50 pm.
Fri 19 Jun
My wife and I went to White Sands to buy some stuff we need at home, and we had lunch at Lerk Thai after much deliberation. We used to really like the food there, but there were two occasions we went there and the food was terrible. I guess they must had changed the chef at that point. We gave it another chance, and today's food was fabulous. So Lerk Thai has regained its status as 'possible food joint in White Sands'.
I went back home and was saddened to discover my hamster Beckham had died. Recently he showed sudden signs of debilitation, and I thought it was a bad sign, but I didn't expect it to be so soon. He suddenly looked extremely scrawny, and couldn't open his eyes much. Then I discovered two days ago that his rear was stained with urine, like he couldn't control his bladder or something. His body was still warm when I found him, so I suppose he died a short while ago. In an odd way his paws were clasped together like he was praying.
So ironically, the murderer hamster remained the last surviving one.
At night, J, Collin and Alvin came over to play mahjong overnight. We played for two rounds, and got too hungry so we ordered in McDonalds for supper, and played another round. Alvin was the big winner tonight, almost clearing out J's drawer, and mine was on the way to emptiness. His luck was so ridiculously good it was demoralizing to play because he just kept winning. Fast. And big. When your luck is that incredible, you don't even need your brains to play. We finished at about 4+ to 5 am, and I eventually slept at 6.
Sat 20 Jun
Although I was dead tired from the mahjong, I went over as early as I could to my in-laws' place. It was perfect timing that my wife decided to stay over at her parents' place as she didn't want my mahjong to disturb her and that she wanted to spend more time with Jadon, because Jadon fell ill and was running a fever.
Finally, Kah Motors' garage side called me, and told me the car was repaired, so my wife and I headed there to collect our car in the afternoon. We went home to take some stuff, and then headed down to Ikea. We wanted to replace the dining chairs in our living room for quite a while already. Apparently the PVC leather had started cracking and flaking quite badly, so we wanted to buy something that had no cushion. We shortlisted one dark brown wooden chair with chrome legs originally, but I still didn't like them much. In the end, we bought a totally plastic orange chair, which I guess could still loosely fit the colour scheme, but I think I need some other accessories to blend them in the decor fully.
After dropping off the purchases at home, we went down to my in-laws' place to check on Jadon. He was running a fever of 38.2 degrees Celsius quite consistently, so at night when the fever still didn't recede after we fed him some medicine we had from before for him, we brought him to the GP we usually go to. At the clinic entrance, the nurse took Jadon's aural temperature, and it was 39.4! Straightaway we drove down to KK Hospital to the Child Emergency section. Only two were allowed in, so I waited outside and played some games on my ipod to kill time. After a long while, my wife called to tell me that they were waiting for Jadon's blood test result. Eventually, the diagnosis was that he had a bacterial infection, so had to be prescribed antibiotics. Now this was the point when things cocked up. The doctor prescribed syrup based antibiotics, which made sense since Jadon was only ten months old. The pharmacy nurses said they no longer had such stock as there was no supply. What the heck??? Then the nurse gave my wife antibiotic tablets. For goodness' sake, how is a ten month old baby going to swallow a full sized tablet? My wife, now irritated, went back to the doctor and asked for an alternative prescription. The nurse at the pharmacy also said she would go consult the medical books. After wasting a whole lot of time, finally we got a different medicine. My wife wanted to write this down on a feedback form, and to her shock, she found only one form left, and it had scribblings on it.
Suddenly we had a lower opinion of KK Hospital.
By the time we got back to my in-laws' place it was about 2 am. By the time I helped wash the milk bottles and stuff, I took a cab and reached home only near 3 am. Hmm. Recent weekends were all sleep-deprived, I realized.
Sun 21 Jun
I skipped church service today and went straight to my in-laws' place to help them out. Apparently last night Jadon was crying most of the time and my wife and mother-in-law hardly got any sleep, so I spent Fathers' Day doing a father's job, which I guess was pretty apt. Thank God his fever completely subsided today, but he was still crying (and drooling) frequently probably because he was teething.
In the afternoon, after trying to catch a few power naps when Jadon was momentarily asleep, I headed down to Bedok Camp for my Remedial Training. Although this is certainly not a good thing for a man to get, at least it forces me to exercise when I don't have the time nor discipline to. Today's training had so much running my legs were really feeling it. Anyway, no surprise, since the army style of training is focused on overloading.
I bought dinner back for everyone, including my aunt-in-law and cousin-in-law (sounds odd), and spent the time either helping out with taking care of Jadon or in the meantime, watching the longlasting Taiwanese soap. Incidentally, I just realized from the trailers of The Ultimatum that I had missed quite a few episodes. Mediacorp certainly doesn't disappoint my claim that there is a rape in every serial. This one has two! One happened in the past apparently perpetrated by Ye Songnian, and the other one (I think Mediacorp is taking it up one notch) is a gang rape I think (I didn't watch it, but from the previews before the serial started showing, I think it is). I really think that the scriptwriters must have some devious scheme to screen-rape every single popular Mediacorp actress.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thu 11 Jun
My wife went to school first for the last part of her camp, and I went around noon time to continue my Infocomm Club camp. Before I went to school, my wife gave me a call to tell me that she got into a minor car accident. Apparently when she was turning into the college compound, the car behind her still moved and collided into our Honda Jazz's rear. At least the lady at fault was sincere and apologetic, and cooperatively gave all the necessary details. This started a long process over the next few days on car insurance, workshop visits, and other things that proved very educational. Anyway, the bumper came off slightly, and our boot had a visible dent on the side that made it really hard to close the boot properly. Anyway, after she drove down to the workshop, the Honda people told her that the car was still safe to drive, and that she should send the car in on Mon, since they wouldn't have the parts to work on it and neither would they work much over the weekend. She also stopped by her gynae to do a checkup just to be safe, and thank God again, the baby was safe and sound.
That was only the start of the most unlucky day of my wife's entire life. In the afternoon when she was going back to her parents' place, when she was downstairs of her block, she got drenched. Someone from upstairs emptied a pail of fluid from the corridor! My guess was that it might have been coffee, because later on when I walked past the spot, there was a brown stain on the cement. My wife also said that it was sticky and smelled sweet. In any case, her whole body was hit, and even her phone too. She couldn't see the culprit, but nonetheless she filed a complaint. Since it wasn't a solid object being thrown down, it couldn't be filed to the police, and it ended up being routed to NEA for investigation.
I managed to complete a load of slightly overdue marking and other work while I was there, so that was a bonus. The kids were having games and all, and I was holding on to the main gate key. Originally, I wanted to go with them to dinner together and back so that I needn't make extra trips, but they were too engrossed in their games and couldn't give me a proper estimate of time that I quickly went opposite to buy back dinner at around 7.30 pm, and by then I was already famished. In the end, they only left for dinner at around 8.40 pm. Thank God I made the wise choice of walking a bit extra to settle my meal. Because of that, the whole schedule was pushed back. The new Executive Committee was to be determined today, so there was a round of hustings. That dragged to a whopping 2 am roughly, and two of my colleagues and I was there. One left early to sleep, while Jonathan and I went the whole way. We did that last year too when we were just Audio-Visual Club, prior to the merger that made us Infocomm Club. So we went to the classroom with the current Exco, and had a long-drawn discussion and finally came to a conclusion on the new Exco members at 4+ am in the morning. I finally was back in the staff room ready to sleep at 5 plus, and slept till about 8 am.
Fri 12 Jun
My colleagues and I went to give support when the new Exco was announced, and we talked to everyone to make sure that they were satisfied with their positions. When everything was settled, I headed over to my in-laws' place to spend a bit of time with Jadon, and in the afternoon, my wife and I drove down to Suntec City because my wife wanted to check out the maternity wear there, along with her close friend who also is pregnant and subsequently meet some other friends at Marina Square.
That was a bad, bad choice. Although we were conscious of the fact that the PC Show was held there, it didn't occur to us how tough parking would be. Suntec City's and Marina Square's carparks were full, and we ended up parking at Millenium Walk, and had to walk through a huge crowd to get to where we wanted to go. Along the way, I detoured to DC Superheros store and bought a black Batman tee with bling-blings that make up the Batman logo. Super cool. My wife bought a few pieces of clothes from Spring Maternity, which I sponsored, and then we headed over to Ministry of Food at Marina Square for dinner and dessert.
Since my hands were itching for mahjong, two of them came over to our place to play, and we were joined by another friend later on at night. We played all the way to the next day morning. I wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep, or just misfortune, but I lost a bit of money.
Anyway, the choice to play through the night was a bad one not because I lost money, but I was going to be a brother for my blood brudder Junzhong's wedding the next morning!
Sat 13 Jun
I was done sending off my guests at 4+ am, and I went to take a shower, grab breakfast, dress up, and another of the brothers came by at 5.45 am to give me a lift. We went down to the bride's place, got things prepared, and we went to fetch the bride.
We went through a surprisingly familiar tekan (torture?) session to blood brudder Yuren's. So much so that I believe that there must be some forum thread out there where the women discuss all their nasty ideas, and there is some formulaic template available. When we got there, we were made to wear disposable underwear with very cute stickers on it over our pants, and do stupid poses as we climb 9 storeys to the bride's home (in Yuren's one, we were made to wear diapers and strike yoga poses). Then we were made to drink a concoction of herbal tea with tobasco sauce. This was standard fare, so there is no need to compare. Then, to no surprise, we were given wax strips to wax our legs and use the hair-filled wax strips to fill up a certain word on a placard passed to us.
I could almost yawn, looking at how repetitious this is. I think this is the dumbest torture, because the only reasoning I have heard so far on why this was done was for the men to empathize with what women had to live with, and honestly, I don't know many women who wax their legs, or other, um, more sensitive parts. Anyway, I don't know how the fetching-bride ceremony had evolved to sessions for sisters to torture the groom and the brothers. Some women out there must had been sadistic to spread this into a 'tradition'. As far as I know, this 'tradition' is shockingly recently developed.
Then the groom had to sing a song very loud, which was pretty standard as well. Blood brudder Zhenxing, who was tasked with handling the ang pows, was careless, and when the sisters asked for the ang pow, he actually took out the whole stack of five and passed the groom one. Obviously the sisters would want all five and more. So in the end, after they got the five ang pows, they wanted more and shut the groom out. We had to go back to the car to fill one last ang pow and come back. I think this is the first wedding I helped out where I saw the groom get angry. Ah well. I guess the fact that it was raining made it feel like things were not going quite as planned.
Thereafter, it was quite routine, with the tea ceremonies and all. Blood brudder Shaofeng and I headed down to Kaki Bukit to pick up the roast pig inbetween, and by the time we had lunch and settled all the necessary, it was 1 pm when I got home. I had a quick one-hour nap, and I went with my wife to the hotel. Junzhong was having a solemnisation ceremony there at 6 pm, and we were supposed to have a briefing and rehearsal at 4 thereabouts, since there were going to be swordbearers.
I was quite impressed with the fact that I was running around fully functional on three hours of total sleep in two days.
I got the AV stuff settled, and while waiting for all the (late) people to arrive, my wife called me to inform me of a big sale. I didn't quite believe it so I popped over to Central from the hotel, which was just across the road (Swissotel Merchant Court), and checked it out.
I went crazy in the shop!
Club Marc was having a massive sale where everything was $15 a piece! Except some new arrivals, bags and blazers. I had bought stuff from Club Marc before, and I think the quality is good, so I went to try out work pants, casual pants, short-sleeved and long-sleeved shirts, and I spent an hour there. The best part was that if you pay with Citibank, on chalking up $150, you get a 10% discount, and a free membership card (which usually needs $300 of spending to earn)! I bought exactly ten items and got the discount, so I essentially paid $13.50 per piece for my one short-sleeved shirt, one long-sleeved shirt, one pair of funky black shoes (that I shall try sneakily wearing it to work...anyway nobody notices what men wear so should be alright), two leather belts, one pair of three-quarts, two pairs of casual pants, and two pairs of formal work pants.
This is dirt cheap to pay for the quality. Guys, take my word and go check it out. This is the best sale I have spotted thus far for GSS.
I quickly rushed back to the hotel, and surprisingly my absence was not detrimental, so things went well as planned. The Justice of Peace officiating at the solemnisation was this red-haired unconventional woman who spoke so dramatically and with funny intonations that I think if you put a tall conical hat on her and pass her a broom, she could well be a character in Harry Potter. She said offbeat things like 'marriage is between one man and one woman and no one extra', and she made the whole ceremony quite light-hearted. But she mispronounced Junzhong's name Kevin as Kelvin twice.
There were many guests at the banquet that were out to 'sabo' the bride and groom with either unpleasant concoctions or lots of liquor. I ended up the only brother who actually went to down a glass with two shots worth of Chivas Regal and two margaritas for the bride and groom, but for the rest he was on his own, since the friends insisted on him being 'tortured'.
And finally, I get my hard-earned sleep for the night.
Sun 14 Jun
I went to service as usual, and for cell group, we celebrated the birthdays of two members during our cell group (and lunch) at KFC. After that, my wife and I headed home first for me to get changed, and she dropped me off at Bedok Camp. I had failed last year's IPPT, so I was due for Remedial Training. Fortunately for me, today's session was purely briefing, so I didn't sweat one bit, because I woke up with a cramp in my left calf which gave me an annoying pain the whole day.
After the briefing was done, I headed back to Bedok, ate curry noodles at the Interchange and went to spend time with Jadon.
Mon 15 Jun
I headed down to Eunos for driving, which went relatively well. After that, my instructor let me end my lesson at Honda's workshop where I met my wife to settle the repairs and all. I think Honda's service staff were friendly, helpful and had initiative, so that made the whole troublesome process a lot less painful.
On coming back, I headed over to Hair de Vogue to get a haircut, and had a late lunch of fried fish bee hoon. Anyway, as a continuation of my wife's super suay day on last Thursday, her phone died, and I think it was extremely likely due to damage from the fluid, whatever it might have been, seeping into the phone. So I guess this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
In any case, my wife was furious the whole day. Apparently my sister-in-law was involved somewhat in the coming AYG event, and there was an email sent that offered a free flu jab for all who were involved. So my sister-in-law came over to our place to get the consent form (her printer was down), and my wife signed for her as guardian in the place of her mother, and my sister-in-law went down to SGH to get her jab.
And the nurse refused her! She said that it must be the parent's signature and that she needed proof that my wife was indeed her sister. That might have been protocol, or the nurse's own decision, but nonetheless it was ridiculously dumb. My sister-in-law went with a friend who had her grandma's signature and that was accepted when she explained that her parents were not around. My wife was so pissed by the incident that she was determined to send a complaint somewhere, either to SGH or AYG. Seriously, when my wife is riled, she is resolute at getting justice served.
My wife went to school first for the last part of her camp, and I went around noon time to continue my Infocomm Club camp. Before I went to school, my wife gave me a call to tell me that she got into a minor car accident. Apparently when she was turning into the college compound, the car behind her still moved and collided into our Honda Jazz's rear. At least the lady at fault was sincere and apologetic, and cooperatively gave all the necessary details. This started a long process over the next few days on car insurance, workshop visits, and other things that proved very educational. Anyway, the bumper came off slightly, and our boot had a visible dent on the side that made it really hard to close the boot properly. Anyway, after she drove down to the workshop, the Honda people told her that the car was still safe to drive, and that she should send the car in on Mon, since they wouldn't have the parts to work on it and neither would they work much over the weekend. She also stopped by her gynae to do a checkup just to be safe, and thank God again, the baby was safe and sound.
That was only the start of the most unlucky day of my wife's entire life. In the afternoon when she was going back to her parents' place, when she was downstairs of her block, she got drenched. Someone from upstairs emptied a pail of fluid from the corridor! My guess was that it might have been coffee, because later on when I walked past the spot, there was a brown stain on the cement. My wife also said that it was sticky and smelled sweet. In any case, her whole body was hit, and even her phone too. She couldn't see the culprit, but nonetheless she filed a complaint. Since it wasn't a solid object being thrown down, it couldn't be filed to the police, and it ended up being routed to NEA for investigation.
I managed to complete a load of slightly overdue marking and other work while I was there, so that was a bonus. The kids were having games and all, and I was holding on to the main gate key. Originally, I wanted to go with them to dinner together and back so that I needn't make extra trips, but they were too engrossed in their games and couldn't give me a proper estimate of time that I quickly went opposite to buy back dinner at around 7.30 pm, and by then I was already famished. In the end, they only left for dinner at around 8.40 pm. Thank God I made the wise choice of walking a bit extra to settle my meal. Because of that, the whole schedule was pushed back. The new Executive Committee was to be determined today, so there was a round of hustings. That dragged to a whopping 2 am roughly, and two of my colleagues and I was there. One left early to sleep, while Jonathan and I went the whole way. We did that last year too when we were just Audio-Visual Club, prior to the merger that made us Infocomm Club. So we went to the classroom with the current Exco, and had a long-drawn discussion and finally came to a conclusion on the new Exco members at 4+ am in the morning. I finally was back in the staff room ready to sleep at 5 plus, and slept till about 8 am.
Fri 12 Jun
My colleagues and I went to give support when the new Exco was announced, and we talked to everyone to make sure that they were satisfied with their positions. When everything was settled, I headed over to my in-laws' place to spend a bit of time with Jadon, and in the afternoon, my wife and I drove down to Suntec City because my wife wanted to check out the maternity wear there, along with her close friend who also is pregnant and subsequently meet some other friends at Marina Square.
That was a bad, bad choice. Although we were conscious of the fact that the PC Show was held there, it didn't occur to us how tough parking would be. Suntec City's and Marina Square's carparks were full, and we ended up parking at Millenium Walk, and had to walk through a huge crowd to get to where we wanted to go. Along the way, I detoured to DC Superheros store and bought a black Batman tee with bling-blings that make up the Batman logo. Super cool. My wife bought a few pieces of clothes from Spring Maternity, which I sponsored, and then we headed over to Ministry of Food at Marina Square for dinner and dessert.
Since my hands were itching for mahjong, two of them came over to our place to play, and we were joined by another friend later on at night. We played all the way to the next day morning. I wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep, or just misfortune, but I lost a bit of money.
Anyway, the choice to play through the night was a bad one not because I lost money, but I was going to be a brother for my blood brudder Junzhong's wedding the next morning!
Sat 13 Jun
I was done sending off my guests at 4+ am, and I went to take a shower, grab breakfast, dress up, and another of the brothers came by at 5.45 am to give me a lift. We went down to the bride's place, got things prepared, and we went to fetch the bride.
We went through a surprisingly familiar tekan (torture?) session to blood brudder Yuren's. So much so that I believe that there must be some forum thread out there where the women discuss all their nasty ideas, and there is some formulaic template available. When we got there, we were made to wear disposable underwear with very cute stickers on it over our pants, and do stupid poses as we climb 9 storeys to the bride's home (in Yuren's one, we were made to wear diapers and strike yoga poses). Then we were made to drink a concoction of herbal tea with tobasco sauce. This was standard fare, so there is no need to compare. Then, to no surprise, we were given wax strips to wax our legs and use the hair-filled wax strips to fill up a certain word on a placard passed to us.
I could almost yawn, looking at how repetitious this is. I think this is the dumbest torture, because the only reasoning I have heard so far on why this was done was for the men to empathize with what women had to live with, and honestly, I don't know many women who wax their legs, or other, um, more sensitive parts. Anyway, I don't know how the fetching-bride ceremony had evolved to sessions for sisters to torture the groom and the brothers. Some women out there must had been sadistic to spread this into a 'tradition'. As far as I know, this 'tradition' is shockingly recently developed.
Then the groom had to sing a song very loud, which was pretty standard as well. Blood brudder Zhenxing, who was tasked with handling the ang pows, was careless, and when the sisters asked for the ang pow, he actually took out the whole stack of five and passed the groom one. Obviously the sisters would want all five and more. So in the end, after they got the five ang pows, they wanted more and shut the groom out. We had to go back to the car to fill one last ang pow and come back. I think this is the first wedding I helped out where I saw the groom get angry. Ah well. I guess the fact that it was raining made it feel like things were not going quite as planned.
Thereafter, it was quite routine, with the tea ceremonies and all. Blood brudder Shaofeng and I headed down to Kaki Bukit to pick up the roast pig inbetween, and by the time we had lunch and settled all the necessary, it was 1 pm when I got home. I had a quick one-hour nap, and I went with my wife to the hotel. Junzhong was having a solemnisation ceremony there at 6 pm, and we were supposed to have a briefing and rehearsal at 4 thereabouts, since there were going to be swordbearers.
I was quite impressed with the fact that I was running around fully functional on three hours of total sleep in two days.
I got the AV stuff settled, and while waiting for all the (late) people to arrive, my wife called me to inform me of a big sale. I didn't quite believe it so I popped over to Central from the hotel, which was just across the road (Swissotel Merchant Court), and checked it out.
I went crazy in the shop!
Club Marc was having a massive sale where everything was $15 a piece! Except some new arrivals, bags and blazers. I had bought stuff from Club Marc before, and I think the quality is good, so I went to try out work pants, casual pants, short-sleeved and long-sleeved shirts, and I spent an hour there. The best part was that if you pay with Citibank, on chalking up $150, you get a 10% discount, and a free membership card (which usually needs $300 of spending to earn)! I bought exactly ten items and got the discount, so I essentially paid $13.50 per piece for my one short-sleeved shirt, one long-sleeved shirt, one pair of funky black shoes (that I shall try sneakily wearing it to work...anyway nobody notices what men wear so should be alright), two leather belts, one pair of three-quarts, two pairs of casual pants, and two pairs of formal work pants.
This is dirt cheap to pay for the quality. Guys, take my word and go check it out. This is the best sale I have spotted thus far for GSS.
I quickly rushed back to the hotel, and surprisingly my absence was not detrimental, so things went well as planned. The Justice of Peace officiating at the solemnisation was this red-haired unconventional woman who spoke so dramatically and with funny intonations that I think if you put a tall conical hat on her and pass her a broom, she could well be a character in Harry Potter. She said offbeat things like 'marriage is between one man and one woman and no one extra', and she made the whole ceremony quite light-hearted. But she mispronounced Junzhong's name Kevin as Kelvin twice.
There were many guests at the banquet that were out to 'sabo' the bride and groom with either unpleasant concoctions or lots of liquor. I ended up the only brother who actually went to down a glass with two shots worth of Chivas Regal and two margaritas for the bride and groom, but for the rest he was on his own, since the friends insisted on him being 'tortured'.
And finally, I get my hard-earned sleep for the night.
Sun 14 Jun
I went to service as usual, and for cell group, we celebrated the birthdays of two members during our cell group (and lunch) at KFC. After that, my wife and I headed home first for me to get changed, and she dropped me off at Bedok Camp. I had failed last year's IPPT, so I was due for Remedial Training. Fortunately for me, today's session was purely briefing, so I didn't sweat one bit, because I woke up with a cramp in my left calf which gave me an annoying pain the whole day.
After the briefing was done, I headed back to Bedok, ate curry noodles at the Interchange and went to spend time with Jadon.
Mon 15 Jun
I headed down to Eunos for driving, which went relatively well. After that, my instructor let me end my lesson at Honda's workshop where I met my wife to settle the repairs and all. I think Honda's service staff were friendly, helpful and had initiative, so that made the whole troublesome process a lot less painful.
On coming back, I headed over to Hair de Vogue to get a haircut, and had a late lunch of fried fish bee hoon. Anyway, as a continuation of my wife's super suay day on last Thursday, her phone died, and I think it was extremely likely due to damage from the fluid, whatever it might have been, seeping into the phone. So I guess this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
In any case, my wife was furious the whole day. Apparently my sister-in-law was involved somewhat in the coming AYG event, and there was an email sent that offered a free flu jab for all who were involved. So my sister-in-law came over to our place to get the consent form (her printer was down), and my wife signed for her as guardian in the place of her mother, and my sister-in-law went down to SGH to get her jab.
And the nurse refused her! She said that it must be the parent's signature and that she needed proof that my wife was indeed her sister. That might have been protocol, or the nurse's own decision, but nonetheless it was ridiculously dumb. My sister-in-law went with a friend who had her grandma's signature and that was accepted when she explained that her parents were not around. My wife was so pissed by the incident that she was determined to send a complaint somewhere, either to SGH or AYG. Seriously, when my wife is riled, she is resolute at getting justice served.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wed 10 Jun
I went back to school early today because the Infocomm Club (I'm one of the teachers in charge) was going to camp overnight for today and tomorrow. I went to draw the necessary keys from the Operations Manager first, and then went to do some work in the office. After running to and fro a little to settle some issues that cropped up, I went to Parkway Parade with my wife for lunch and to buy some stuff for Jadon.
We were originally planning to eat at Sakuraya Fish Mart, but we realized that there wasn't much cooked food items that my wife could eat, since now she shouldn't be eating sashimi or other raw food. We walked around and chanced upon this place Koo Kee Dumplings and Ramen. It didn't look particularly special, but we thought we wanted to try something different, so we went in. My wife ordered ginseng chicken ramen, and I ordered (a rather expensive $16) seafood fried rice in egg white sauce, one basket of six pieces of xiao long bao and an aloe vera and jelly dessert.
The dessert came first (we originally thought it was a drink from the photograph in the menu), and it was surprisingly good, although small in portion. Then the ginseng chicken ramen came. Again, we were surprised because in the picture in the menu, the noodles and the soup were separate, but when it was served, the whole thing was in one bowl. But the better surprise was that the food was superb! The ginseng chicken soup was rich in flavour, and you could really taste the double-boiled chicken taste, and a tad bit of ginseng to add flavour. The lean pork meat in the soup was tender and sweet, and so was the chicken drumstick, and the ramen was of good texture and quality. Then came my fried rice, which I should have guessed from the description was actually some variation of mui fan. The picture in the menu again deceived me because the gravy in the picture looked like it was just a sprinkling, but the actual dish had the rice swimming in it. But the taste was delicious! The scallops and prawns that came with it were fresh and naturally sweet-tasting. The xiao long bao was the biggest shock of all. Both my wife and I found the buns better than Ding Tai Fung's, which we consider to be very good already, because the xiao long bao had plenty of the 'soup' inside, and the skin was not too thin nor too thick, and the meat inside had good texture and was tender and well-mashed.
So lunch turned out to be a surprise.
We went around shopping, and I bought new clothes for Jadon, but setting my sights further, I bought for 12-18 months. I bought a sleeveless tee and a pair of beach shorts, and one pair of rompers with some cute cartoon fox designs. Not cheap too, considering that they were discounted, but I suppose Pumpkin Patch Kids is kinda branded? Next we went to Mothercare and bought a new set of milk bottles to replace the ones at my in-laws' place, which were becoming gradually yellow. So all in all, I already unknowingly chalked up $150+ expenditure. Since the mall was having some jackpot promotion with every $50 spent, I went to queue for a try.
I think the promotion really sucks. I got 3 tries at the machine, and out of the 3 tries, I won a $5 voucher. I had thought the voucher was a Parkway Parade voucher, but no! It was a Cloth-ier voucher. After queueing up, I won myself a voucher that I doubt I would use?
It was a genuine waste of time.
At least White Sands' promotion gives away $6 Asiamalls voucher (limited to White Sands only) with every $80 spent. No gimmicks, just a fixed 'rebate'.
My wife went to spend time with Jadon while I went back to school for the camp. When my colleague came and took over, I set off for Bugis where Collin picked me up and we went to Bukit Merah for dinner, and then for cell group. It was a long day.
I went back to school early today because the Infocomm Club (I'm one of the teachers in charge) was going to camp overnight for today and tomorrow. I went to draw the necessary keys from the Operations Manager first, and then went to do some work in the office. After running to and fro a little to settle some issues that cropped up, I went to Parkway Parade with my wife for lunch and to buy some stuff for Jadon.
We were originally planning to eat at Sakuraya Fish Mart, but we realized that there wasn't much cooked food items that my wife could eat, since now she shouldn't be eating sashimi or other raw food. We walked around and chanced upon this place Koo Kee Dumplings and Ramen. It didn't look particularly special, but we thought we wanted to try something different, so we went in. My wife ordered ginseng chicken ramen, and I ordered (a rather expensive $16) seafood fried rice in egg white sauce, one basket of six pieces of xiao long bao and an aloe vera and jelly dessert.
The dessert came first (we originally thought it was a drink from the photograph in the menu), and it was surprisingly good, although small in portion. Then the ginseng chicken ramen came. Again, we were surprised because in the picture in the menu, the noodles and the soup were separate, but when it was served, the whole thing was in one bowl. But the better surprise was that the food was superb! The ginseng chicken soup was rich in flavour, and you could really taste the double-boiled chicken taste, and a tad bit of ginseng to add flavour. The lean pork meat in the soup was tender and sweet, and so was the chicken drumstick, and the ramen was of good texture and quality. Then came my fried rice, which I should have guessed from the description was actually some variation of mui fan. The picture in the menu again deceived me because the gravy in the picture looked like it was just a sprinkling, but the actual dish had the rice swimming in it. But the taste was delicious! The scallops and prawns that came with it were fresh and naturally sweet-tasting. The xiao long bao was the biggest shock of all. Both my wife and I found the buns better than Ding Tai Fung's, which we consider to be very good already, because the xiao long bao had plenty of the 'soup' inside, and the skin was not too thin nor too thick, and the meat inside had good texture and was tender and well-mashed.
So lunch turned out to be a surprise.
We went around shopping, and I bought new clothes for Jadon, but setting my sights further, I bought for 12-18 months. I bought a sleeveless tee and a pair of beach shorts, and one pair of rompers with some cute cartoon fox designs. Not cheap too, considering that they were discounted, but I suppose Pumpkin Patch Kids is kinda branded? Next we went to Mothercare and bought a new set of milk bottles to replace the ones at my in-laws' place, which were becoming gradually yellow. So all in all, I already unknowingly chalked up $150+ expenditure. Since the mall was having some jackpot promotion with every $50 spent, I went to queue for a try.
I think the promotion really sucks. I got 3 tries at the machine, and out of the 3 tries, I won a $5 voucher. I had thought the voucher was a Parkway Parade voucher, but no! It was a Cloth-ier voucher. After queueing up, I won myself a voucher that I doubt I would use?
It was a genuine waste of time.
At least White Sands' promotion gives away $6 Asiamalls voucher (limited to White Sands only) with every $80 spent. No gimmicks, just a fixed 'rebate'.
My wife went to spend time with Jadon while I went back to school for the camp. When my colleague came and took over, I set off for Bugis where Collin picked me up and we went to Bukit Merah for dinner, and then for cell group. It was a long day.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
I finally have time to blog, so be prepared for (probably) the longest blog post on this blog so far!
Sat 9 May
I brought my mum out with me and my wife to Downtown East for lunch at Sakura Restaurant. My mum doesn't quite like foreign cuisine, so at least there's ample choice for her. What I didn't expect was that the restaurant was fully booked for Mothers' Day! We were the first customers there in the queue, but because we didn't book, we were placed outside in the non-airconditioned area. Fortunately we were there first, so we plucked ourselves beneath the fan, and near the food, so it was no real loss. My mum enjoyed the food, and I took plenty of salmon sashimi to make my money worth it. Still, the buffet lunch was priced two bucks higher for the occasion.
For dinner, my wife and I went out to White Sands to eat at our favourite place, Coffee Club. I had the delicious staple Miso Soft Shell Crab. Hehe.
Sun 10 May
My wife and I went to service and had cell group as usual, and we headed over to my in-laws' place. We popped by Spaggedies for lunch to try it since it was newly opened. We figured that we should quickly eat there before it folds; I'm neither a pessimist nor a vindictive person who would want to curse a business, but seriously, opening a (relatively) high-class restaurant in Bedok, which has a pretty high population of old folks, and most of the estate seems to be middle-income or lower families, makes me wonder if they had done their market survey.
In the evening, we headed back early because my colleagues were coming over for mahjong. One of my colleagues had left the profession and might go over to New Zealand for quite a while, so this gathering was more or less for her. Unless the cows over there can play mahjong, she should be quite deprived of this entertainment for a while. It turned out to be a short session though, because they came late, and they didn't want to stay too late. Let's just say that it was far too short to clear the itch of my fingers. Heh.
Mon 11 May
I spent this holiday with my wife at my in-laws' place with Jadon for the large part of the day. He's now speaking plenty of gibberish, and learning to stand with support. He's so adorable! Bwahaha. Darn, I don't think I have enough time to update his photo album site though.
We found time to do a bit of shopping at White Sands, and there was a big sale at Jimmyz. I spotted quite a few business shirts that looked pretty decent, and I haven't bought new clothes for work for some time, so I splurged a little, and earned myself a membership card.
I ended up working late into the night till about 3 am to produce a powerpoint for the coming College Day next Saturday. I was informed relatively last minute that they needed my help (although I expected it), and wanted a preview of it for all the leaders and heads of department for their usual meeting tomorrow. Fortunately, I am sufficiently efficient to complete about 99% of the slides (the remaining 1% was bottlenecked by someone else), which was beyond what they hoped I could deliver actually. I'm particularly fond of this year's slides because I went totally ballistic with colour, and made something that had all 7 colours of the rainbow. And it looks pretty much grattifi-styled. I love it, but wasn't sure if the older-aged leaders would like it. Hmm. It was a big gamble.
Tue 12 May
I went to school to settle some administration like temperature taking exercise due to the recent H1N1 scare, and some other tasks before joining my Science HOD to go to NIE. The current NIE chemistry coordinator invited my HOD to give a talk to the current batch of trainees about SPA (School-based Practical Assessment, not the relaxing bath that I would prefer it to be), so he pulled me along to give the teacher's perspective. I think this was a good initiative by NIE for sure, since it would be more accurate to have actual teachers who were implementing the program to talk about it than to hear it from some third party source. So we made our little journey to the west, and had one session at around 10.30. The professor who liaised with us wanted to meet us for lunch at 12.30, but when the session was over by 11.30, both of us were famished. So I went with my HOD to the NIE canteen to eat my favourite mee goreng. I warned my HOD that the professor was likely to treat us to lunch, but he was skeptical of it. When we were done eating and were too early, we went to the NIE library to do some work, but I decided to take a break and play Facebook games. Bwahaha.
When we finally met the professor, he brought us over to NTU side. I was quite shocked that the place was totally revamped! What used to be Canteen A (I think it was A) was now gone, and the whole walkway stretch had been turned into a row of fastfood and dining joints, and there were even a food court, a Chinese and Western restaurant there! We went to the Western restaurant, and as I predicted, the professor nicely insisted a treat for us. So despite having a big plate of mee goreng, I had a steak with soup and garlic bread, and finished it up. Must give the professor face right? My HOD also finished most of the fish and chips, and we were literally bursting at the seams by the time we went to give the second session.
We rushed back to College because my HOD had to go for his meeting, and I asked him to spy for me the reactions on the slides. I was glad to find out that most of them loved the flamboyance of the slides. Hehe. I went for the College Day rehearsal, and got a whole list of minor changes to be made.
Wed 13 May
This week I was totally removed from school because other than yesterday's talk at NIE, these three days I would be at Teachers' Network at Grange Road for an UCLES (the guys in charge of setting and marking the 'A' Levels) marking course. The guys who came down clearly know their stuff, and I think I learned a great deal today instead of the boredom I was initially anticipating. I went with my colleagues to 5 Star Chicken Rice for a satisfying lunch, and I overate because I was cleaning out the remaining food when the rest had given up. The course ended at 5 pm and I made my way down to Bedok to find my wife and kid.
Thu 14 May
Today was the second day of the course, which was still interesting for me. I think quite a few people had the misconception that I was sleeping during the course because I was bochup. In actual fact, we were given time to mark certain scripts so that we experience the process. I finished much, much faster than everyone else, and I marked beyond what was required. For instance, when the guy told us to mark the first two (of five) scripts, I would have finished marking all five before the rest marked the two. What else should I do with the remaining time but rest my eyes? So contrary to appearances, I was a good student. Haha.
In fact, I was so diligent that during the tea break, I stayed in the room to discuss something with the UCLES guy. He was talking about the new planning component of SPA, and he made a suggestion which I thought was good, and I followed up on it and drafted a huge plan on how to section and teach the planning part. He thought so well of it that he got it from me to share with another group when they asked him about the planning. Anyway, the rest of my colleagues also intended to follow up on what I drafted to start something for the year 1s this year. So all in all, the time was fruitful. For me, at least. It gave my mind a mental workout. Even though I slept only four hours after making changes to the College Day slides till about 3 am once more. I think the plan was not bad, considering that it came from a brain that had insufficient sleep (about 6 hours in two days).
Fri 15 May
My colleagues and I reached the place early, so I grabbed some breakfast on top of the miserable bun I ate on the way to Teachers' Network. Today was only half-day course, but most of us were going back to school anyway. However, my colleagues were so taken by my accolades of praise for Ministry of Food that we ended up going to the Bugis outlet for lunch.
They absolutely loved it! From the main courses to the desserts. My reputation as a foodie has once again been maintained by the good recommendation. Hehe. By the way, if you do want to check out MOF, you must go to the Bugis outlet. That has better quality food than the others I have tried (Marina Square and Suntec City). The other outlets were still good, but the Bugis one is fantastic. I think it's because the lady boss frequently shows up there to do QC (quality control). Or at least that was what I think she was doing when I saw her there twice.
When I went back to school, I spent some time with my principal to discuss and finalize the last changes to the powerpoint slides, and wrapped it up nicely in time for the rehearsal. I slept quite little last night as well actually, because I promised her I would make certain changes, and let her preview it early Friday morning. It's a good thing I have my own server space for my website, so I have been using it as a temporary repository for big files so that I can just send out the links for relevant people to download them.
Sat 16 May
It was finally College Day, and I was extremely relieved to have absolutely no glitches on my side for the powerpoint slides, video show and AV support. The lunch reception was disappointing though in quality. I managed to chat with some of my graduated students before I left to spend time with Jadon.
Sun 17 May
I went to service as usual with my wife. Nowadays cell group is a minor headache. Now that my wife and I had combined our cells, we have a typical number of about ten. There aren't many places that can comfortably house all of us. The location issue would be solved if we stayed in Hall 9 at Expo, but then we would have to settle for terrible food and extremely loud ambient noise. Going to Eastpoint at least gives more options for food, but there is hardly any place for so many of us to sit down together. Added to that is the fact that it would be lunch time and we wouldn't want to hog the seats unnecessarily long after we are done eating.
Today was bad because we really couldn't find a proper place, so we went separate places for lunch. I was at the NTUC food court, which surprisingly had really nice fishball noodles! I had not eaten good food at a food court for ages, so this was a pleasant surprise. My wife and her girls ended at at Niwa Sushi, and they said that there were some tables from New Zealand Natural Ice Cream side, so my boys and I ended up going there to get dessert, and the girls could join us and we had cell group there.
This was going to be a recurring weekly headache. Sigh.
Mon 18 May
This was a regular school day for me. I headed off to Eunos to have my driving lesson in the afternoon, and I almost had a collision today. A car just cut into my lane abruptly without signalling, and braked! I did the wrong thing by quickly checking the rear and switching lane, which my instructor said I shouldn't have and instead should have just braked behind that offending car. Anyway, at least nothing major happened. I find it odd that drivers on the road would do such risky manoeuvres when clearly a L-plate driver is nearby. The odds of getting an accident are so much higher. Even if insurance can cover the costs, it would be so darn inconvenient to be involved in an accident.
Tue 19 May
It was a busy and quiet day in school for me. I was so tired I was looking forward to a decent meal, and I went opposite school to buy back some Hill Street char kway teow. That packet turned out to be the absolute worst I have ever eaten from that stall, and it was not because it was takeaway. Usually the char kway teow from this stall is fried dark (i.e. quite substantial sweet black sauce), but today's one was shockingly pale in colour, and was totally tasteless. There wasn't even any lard in it! Now I don't really fancy lard in particular, and I really love the lard-less one at Beach Road, but this supposedly famous kway teow depends on lard for flavour, so without it, the kway teow was disgusting. Yes, I think it was disgusting to eat. And it was fried by the old man himself. I think I would stay away from the stall for a while. Just in case it was some evil twin frying.
Wed 20 May
It was a packed day in school. My colleague told us about this nice place off Tanjong Katong Road, and offered to drive us there. So for lunch we ate at With a Pinch of Salt. The ambience there was quite nice, and the beef stew I had was quite good as well, but the food there wasn't particularly spectacular. The dumb thing was that my colleague's student called him when we were almost done eating to ask why he wasn't at civics class. It turned out the for the Integrated Programme students, their civics lesson was brought forward, but apparently none of the tutors were informed. In any case, my colleague, being the responsible man that he is, quickly left and drove back. That meant, though, that the rest of us had to take a cab back on our own. So the lunch ended up more expensive that it should have been. Fortunately we made it back to College just before our own civics lesson was about to begin.
Thu 21 May
One of my colleague's husband sells this product which was to boost a car's performance and reduce its fuel consumption. It's a valve and pipe system apparently. According to several colleagues who had installed the device, it really does increase mileage per litre of petrol, and boosts power upslope. We installed it, which took much longer than expected, and tested it, and it was true! The car did have more power. And in subsequent days we found that the mileage did exceed what it used to be. The funny by-product of this was that the engine ran more quietly too. My wife and I were joking that most Singaporeans 'zng' their cars to be (obnoxiously) loud, but we made ours quieter.
Fri 22 May
After my lessons ended, my wife and I drove down to Aljunied to look for my wife's previous gynae. She had missed her period, and the pregnancy test kit she bought appeared positive. We had picked up my mother-in-law and Jadon too to go see the doctor because Jadon seemed to have a bout of flu. (The gynae doubles as a pediatrician sometimes...haha.) Well, it turned out that I will have a second kid arriving on 24 Jan 2010. Woohoo! This time round, the timing of the pregnancy was planned. Now for teachers, birth control is a tricky thing because the special rule for maternity leave for teachers is that they must take it as a four-month block, even if it 'eats up' the holidays. So there are a few prime periods to deliver a baby in which the four-months will not touch the June or December holidays. We aimed for that, and succeeded. Hehe.
Sat 23 May
Today was a total eat-out day. We woke up early for breakfast at Yakun, and then headed over to spend time with Jadon. For lunch, I went to buy Botak Jones fish and chips takeaway. I was surprised to find out that the fish was wrapped in paper, which made sense before the fried fish is usually so hot that it burns the styrofoam packaging that most places use. What was truly impressive was that the paper was hardly stained with oil, which reflected well on Botak Jones surely.
For dinner, my wife and I went out to Elias Mall and ate at Hi Sshou. The place was, as usual, understaffed, and it took a while for us to be served. I think it was because the place offers a buffet, so the waitresses had to work extra hard taking orders and serving. Anyway, I think other than Ministry of Food, this place has the next best ramen and in general, Japanese food.
Sun 24 May
I thought today's sermon was particularly interesting, talking about being as wise as serpents. Ps Khong was hilarious in his jokes and illustrations. For cell group, we ended up at KFC, which had a cluster of tables big enough to accomodate us. However, we couldn't stay there long because there were many people eyeing our seats, so I made the cell group session as short as I could.
Mon 25 May
Highlight of the day was going to 216 market for lunch. Originally I thought I would eat less since I was gradually but steadily putting on weight. However, my resolve was shortlived, so after my bowl of ban mian I went on to eat a plate of ipoh hor fun as well. And have a glass of shiok ice lemon tea.
Tue 26 May
I had no time to go too far to eat today, so I went opposite for lunch. Somehow I didn't have much of an appetite, with a slightly sore throat and a cough, so I only ate yong tau foo for lunch. Even though I added noodles, the portion would have been usually too little for me, but it was filling enough today.
This could only mean one thing: I am falling sick.
Wed 27 May
I went to school to finish some work, but I felt feverish and my nose was blocked to the point of sounding terribly nasal. So by noon time after settling some quotations and vendors stuff, I quickly left to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed that I was down with a cold and had a mild fever, gave me some medication and a MC up till tomorrow.
The blocked nose combined with plenty of phlegm made my nose and throat very uncomfortable, and in the end, I chose to stay home to rest instead of going to cell group, even though my fever had subsided somewhat.
It was a wise choice, because the fever came back in the evening.
Thu 28 May
I rested practically the whole day. Since the fever left, I didn't really suffer much loss of appetite, so I could still eat my usual portions at home. The problem with this illness was that I would feel like I was alright enough to go out, and then when I go to White Sands to buy groceries or something, after a short while I feel terribly weak or lethargic.
Fri 29 May
Since the MC was over, I went back to school. Along the day, I felt increasingly worse, and my blocked nose plus sore throat made me sound muffled and soft. In the end, my colleagues urged me to go take a rest, and agreeably, I think I'm in no condition to teach, so I went to see the doctor once more to get more medication (she only gave me enough for about two days), and stayed home to rest. The sad thing about my 'quarantine' at home was that I missed Jadon! But God was gracious, and let me bump into my mother-in-law and Jadon at 216 market after I saw the doctor, so I carried him for a short while.
Sat 30 May
I rested in the morning, then went over to visit Jadon when I felt a bit better. At least I wasn't coughing much or having a terribly blocked nose. For dinner I went to Pizza Hut with my wife. Since my throat was still a bit sore, I decided not to eat anything I guess would be 'heaty', so I opted for pasta.
Once again the same conclusion: Pizza Hut's pasta sucks. Terribly.
The cream sauce tastes uneven and clumpy, and seems reminiscent of Campbell soup stock that has only a bit of water added. The seafood in the dish was pathetic. The squid was like rubber and were very thinly cut rings. The prawns were shrimps. Really tiny shrimps that when coiled up was about the size of a ten-cent coin. The pasta was just mediocre, and when I eat something that makes me think that I may be able to cook something better, then it really, really must be sucky.
I told my wife to remind me to never order pasta from Pizza Hut. In addition, the mushroom soup tasted dilute and had two tiny slivers of mushroom in it. Great.
Sun 31 May
I wonder if it's the sucky dinner at Pizza Hut, but I woke up feeling the lethargy of the illness, and opted to have a rest at home, giving service a miss today. I left my poor wife to anchor the cell, and to escort those who can make it to Global Day of Prayer.
In the evening I was still coughing with plenty of phlegm, so I went to see the doctor one last time to get some stronger cough syrup. The doctor on duty was a different one, and he was late for evening opening hours by 40 minutes! That was how long I waited even though I was the first patient to be seen. The doctor was extremely chatty, and he was going on and on about mutation, and that in the past people take only 2 or 3 days to recover from flu and cold, but nowadays they take 2 or 3 weeks. He has a point though, saying that because it takes that long to recover from the flu nowadays and MCs don't stretch for that long, it just means that people bring the bug back with them to the workplace and therefore spreads the virus further. Definitely true because I see neighbouring colleagues take turns to fall sick.
Mon 1 Jun
Welcome June holidays! It didn't feel quite like holidays started because I had to go back to school for a SPA meeting. It didn't take as long as I expected, but it was draining nonetheless. After that was over and done with, I headed over to Eunos for driving lessons. Hopefully during the holidays, I can have lessons more frequently. Of course, I enjoy being chauffered by my wife around currently, but I suppose I must take over quickly before her tummy gets too big to sit behind the wheel.
Tue 2 Jun
I had driving lessons in the morning, which was a different experience from driving at 3 pm, my usual lesson time. The traffic there was heavy nonetheless.
Wed 3 Jun
I had driving lessons in the morning again, and in the afternoon, my wife and I headed over to Marina Square. We wanted to do some shopping for new milk bottles for Jadon, and other baby stuff. Along the way, I passed by Action City, and saw my favourite Hanayama Cast Puzzles, so I bought a new level 5 and level 6 puzzle. We decided to have our dinner at Ministry of Food, and once again I verified for myself that the Bugis outlet is still the best, without a shadow of a doubt.
Thu 4 Jun
My wife and I had lunch at Manhattan Fish Market at White Sands. Now they have a promotion for their fish and chips, which had one extra piece of fish thrown in. The lunch set is $9.90, and because we had a late breakfast (hmm...more about breakfast in a while), that was more than enough for us to share, after we added some calamari and coleslaw sides. I think if I ate the fish and chips on my own, I should barely be able to stuff it down on a normal day.
My wife and I fell in love with Superdog! At least, the Superdog breakfast offerings. Let me just say that after eating Superdog's chocolate chip pancake, I would likely never order pancake from McDonalds again if I ate at White Sands' McDonalds. There are always a couple of items on offer. For instance, currently there is the ham and cheese multigrain (sandwich) promo, which has the sandwich and a drink of coffee or flavoured tea, for $3.90. The chocolate chip pancake promo has the pancakes and a similar choice of drink for $2.90! The pancake is thick slabs, and fragrant with taste, unlike McDonalds' thin slices of flat tasting pancake. The chocolate chip was densely spread throughout the pancake, and was good quality dark chocolate. Absolutely fabulous! There are many flavours for the tea to choose from as well, and my wife loves the apple and apricot flavoured ones the most. The best part was that for the pancakes, they provide SCS butter, and not bland margarine (sorry to the health-conscious people, I am pro-butter), and willingly give extra packs out, so I got one to dump into my coffee. It is nice to drink sinfully once in a while. My wife came here for breakfast yesterday while I went for driving and discovered how good the food was, so here I was on her recommendation. We bought a couple of exercise mats from Tom & Stef for baby to crawl on at home, and then we went back to do massive room cleaning of our master bedroom.
Housework is exhausting.
Fri 5 Jun
I think the Superdog workers must be amused. On Wed, they saw my wife come alone. Yesterday they saw my wife come with me. Today, they saw the wife, the husband and the baby! We brought Jadon with us to the place for breakfast. My wife tried their other breakfast set, and their hotdog was really good. I think Superdog will be earning quite a bit of my breakfast money this holidays.
We went to pick up my mother-in-law in the afternoon, and we went to Tampines to shop around a bit. I managed to spot a nice polo-tee from Recoil, which I had a $5 off voucher for. We bought some other stuff for Jadon's use as well. I think Tampines One has excellent nursing room facilities. Although they only have nursing rooms on third and fifth floor, but they come equipped with two small rooms with seats, one big sink and more seats, and two changing-mats side by side at a corner. That by itself is not fantastic, other than the fact that the rooms are brand new and maintained clean, but the thoughtful part was that they have a water dispenser in there that can dispense both hot and cold water, which was great for making milk or cereal if one runs out of hot water. We had a filling dinner at Qi Ji before we went over to Tampines One food court to have the fabulous chendol from Kapitans.
Sat 6 Jun
My wife and I got up early, was joined by Crystal (my wife's cell member) and sent Jadon to my mother-in-law, and picked up my sister-in-law. We were all heading to a friend's wedding. Jaclyn had since left our church, but she had happily settled in her boyfriend (today, husband)'s church. The pastor was quite amusing in his wedding sermon, so that was a good thing, and we met some friends we hadn't seen in a long while. The lunch reception was quite extravagant, with one laksa and one ice cream pushcart, and a satay section. The main courses had fish, scallops, mussels and wasabi prawns, so I guess they must had splurged on the reception. Not to forget the many decorations all around the church building.
Sun 7 jun
My wife and I had breakfast at the NTUC foodcourt at Simei, and we tried this Mian Zhong Mian stall. The wan ton mee was surprisingly good too. The noodles were really of high quality as they advertised on the signboard outside, and the char siew was the traditional roasted kind (not dyed). The only flaws were that the wan ton themselves were just average, and the lard provided wasn't crispy. Now there are two good stalls we have found in that food court, which makes me re-evaluate the place significantly.
After service, the combined cell went to Eighteen Chefs at Eastpoint for lunch. I shared a rootbeer battered fish and chips with my wife because we were still full from breakfast. I think the fish was too oily today or something, because it made my stomach really queasy the whole day. When we were done with cell, we headed over to my wife's grandma's place at Eunos because one of her little (in age, definitely not in size) cousins was celebrating her birthday. Jadon learnt to wave goodbye today! Haha, we don't know why or how he picked it up, but he waved whenever we said "Bye bye" to him. And waved enthusiastically too, just that he kinda looked like the prosperity cat (招财猫) when he waves.
We popped by my in-laws' place to spend more time with Jadon, and at night blood brudder Junzhong and wife-to-be came over to my place to use my scanner. I had promised him I would help him make a wedding montage video, so he came over to pass me the pictures.
Mon 8 Jun
My wife and I planned to spend the whole day with Jadon at my in-laws' place, so I brought some installation discs over and hijacked my sister-in-law's computer (hmm technically it is my wife's computer since she paid for it, and I had a share in fixing it up from Sim Lim) to do the montage. However, Junzhong and wife-to-be wanted to change some pictures, so they neutralized some of my morning effort when Junzhong came by my in-laws' place to pass me some new pictures.
Tue 9 Jun
It was Superdog for breakfast again! I wonder if they recognize us by now. Anyway, they will likely see us a few more times these weeks. After completing some housework, we went over to my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon.
At late evening, Junzhong called me and said that he wanted to change some pictures again, so he came over at half past ten after we reached home to work on the video together with me. Hopefully this would be the last iteration. In any case, I passed him the software installation disc and all the relevant files, since he had seen me work and should have learnt enough to tweak it on his own, since I will be busy the next few days.
Sat 9 May
I brought my mum out with me and my wife to Downtown East for lunch at Sakura Restaurant. My mum doesn't quite like foreign cuisine, so at least there's ample choice for her. What I didn't expect was that the restaurant was fully booked for Mothers' Day! We were the first customers there in the queue, but because we didn't book, we were placed outside in the non-airconditioned area. Fortunately we were there first, so we plucked ourselves beneath the fan, and near the food, so it was no real loss. My mum enjoyed the food, and I took plenty of salmon sashimi to make my money worth it. Still, the buffet lunch was priced two bucks higher for the occasion.
For dinner, my wife and I went out to White Sands to eat at our favourite place, Coffee Club. I had the delicious staple Miso Soft Shell Crab. Hehe.
Sun 10 May
My wife and I went to service and had cell group as usual, and we headed over to my in-laws' place. We popped by Spaggedies for lunch to try it since it was newly opened. We figured that we should quickly eat there before it folds; I'm neither a pessimist nor a vindictive person who would want to curse a business, but seriously, opening a (relatively) high-class restaurant in Bedok, which has a pretty high population of old folks, and most of the estate seems to be middle-income or lower families, makes me wonder if they had done their market survey.
In the evening, we headed back early because my colleagues were coming over for mahjong. One of my colleagues had left the profession and might go over to New Zealand for quite a while, so this gathering was more or less for her. Unless the cows over there can play mahjong, she should be quite deprived of this entertainment for a while. It turned out to be a short session though, because they came late, and they didn't want to stay too late. Let's just say that it was far too short to clear the itch of my fingers. Heh.
Mon 11 May
I spent this holiday with my wife at my in-laws' place with Jadon for the large part of the day. He's now speaking plenty of gibberish, and learning to stand with support. He's so adorable! Bwahaha. Darn, I don't think I have enough time to update his photo album site though.
We found time to do a bit of shopping at White Sands, and there was a big sale at Jimmyz. I spotted quite a few business shirts that looked pretty decent, and I haven't bought new clothes for work for some time, so I splurged a little, and earned myself a membership card.
I ended up working late into the night till about 3 am to produce a powerpoint for the coming College Day next Saturday. I was informed relatively last minute that they needed my help (although I expected it), and wanted a preview of it for all the leaders and heads of department for their usual meeting tomorrow. Fortunately, I am sufficiently efficient to complete about 99% of the slides (the remaining 1% was bottlenecked by someone else), which was beyond what they hoped I could deliver actually. I'm particularly fond of this year's slides because I went totally ballistic with colour, and made something that had all 7 colours of the rainbow. And it looks pretty much grattifi-styled. I love it, but wasn't sure if the older-aged leaders would like it. Hmm. It was a big gamble.
Tue 12 May
I went to school to settle some administration like temperature taking exercise due to the recent H1N1 scare, and some other tasks before joining my Science HOD to go to NIE. The current NIE chemistry coordinator invited my HOD to give a talk to the current batch of trainees about SPA (School-based Practical Assessment, not the relaxing bath that I would prefer it to be), so he pulled me along to give the teacher's perspective. I think this was a good initiative by NIE for sure, since it would be more accurate to have actual teachers who were implementing the program to talk about it than to hear it from some third party source. So we made our little journey to the west, and had one session at around 10.30. The professor who liaised with us wanted to meet us for lunch at 12.30, but when the session was over by 11.30, both of us were famished. So I went with my HOD to the NIE canteen to eat my favourite mee goreng. I warned my HOD that the professor was likely to treat us to lunch, but he was skeptical of it. When we were done eating and were too early, we went to the NIE library to do some work, but I decided to take a break and play Facebook games. Bwahaha.
When we finally met the professor, he brought us over to NTU side. I was quite shocked that the place was totally revamped! What used to be Canteen A (I think it was A) was now gone, and the whole walkway stretch had been turned into a row of fastfood and dining joints, and there were even a food court, a Chinese and Western restaurant there! We went to the Western restaurant, and as I predicted, the professor nicely insisted a treat for us. So despite having a big plate of mee goreng, I had a steak with soup and garlic bread, and finished it up. Must give the professor face right? My HOD also finished most of the fish and chips, and we were literally bursting at the seams by the time we went to give the second session.
We rushed back to College because my HOD had to go for his meeting, and I asked him to spy for me the reactions on the slides. I was glad to find out that most of them loved the flamboyance of the slides. Hehe. I went for the College Day rehearsal, and got a whole list of minor changes to be made.
Wed 13 May
This week I was totally removed from school because other than yesterday's talk at NIE, these three days I would be at Teachers' Network at Grange Road for an UCLES (the guys in charge of setting and marking the 'A' Levels) marking course. The guys who came down clearly know their stuff, and I think I learned a great deal today instead of the boredom I was initially anticipating. I went with my colleagues to 5 Star Chicken Rice for a satisfying lunch, and I overate because I was cleaning out the remaining food when the rest had given up. The course ended at 5 pm and I made my way down to Bedok to find my wife and kid.
Thu 14 May
Today was the second day of the course, which was still interesting for me. I think quite a few people had the misconception that I was sleeping during the course because I was bochup. In actual fact, we were given time to mark certain scripts so that we experience the process. I finished much, much faster than everyone else, and I marked beyond what was required. For instance, when the guy told us to mark the first two (of five) scripts, I would have finished marking all five before the rest marked the two. What else should I do with the remaining time but rest my eyes? So contrary to appearances, I was a good student. Haha.
In fact, I was so diligent that during the tea break, I stayed in the room to discuss something with the UCLES guy. He was talking about the new planning component of SPA, and he made a suggestion which I thought was good, and I followed up on it and drafted a huge plan on how to section and teach the planning part. He thought so well of it that he got it from me to share with another group when they asked him about the planning. Anyway, the rest of my colleagues also intended to follow up on what I drafted to start something for the year 1s this year. So all in all, the time was fruitful. For me, at least. It gave my mind a mental workout. Even though I slept only four hours after making changes to the College Day slides till about 3 am once more. I think the plan was not bad, considering that it came from a brain that had insufficient sleep (about 6 hours in two days).
Fri 15 May
My colleagues and I reached the place early, so I grabbed some breakfast on top of the miserable bun I ate on the way to Teachers' Network. Today was only half-day course, but most of us were going back to school anyway. However, my colleagues were so taken by my accolades of praise for Ministry of Food that we ended up going to the Bugis outlet for lunch.
They absolutely loved it! From the main courses to the desserts. My reputation as a foodie has once again been maintained by the good recommendation. Hehe. By the way, if you do want to check out MOF, you must go to the Bugis outlet. That has better quality food than the others I have tried (Marina Square and Suntec City). The other outlets were still good, but the Bugis one is fantastic. I think it's because the lady boss frequently shows up there to do QC (quality control). Or at least that was what I think she was doing when I saw her there twice.
When I went back to school, I spent some time with my principal to discuss and finalize the last changes to the powerpoint slides, and wrapped it up nicely in time for the rehearsal. I slept quite little last night as well actually, because I promised her I would make certain changes, and let her preview it early Friday morning. It's a good thing I have my own server space for my website, so I have been using it as a temporary repository for big files so that I can just send out the links for relevant people to download them.
Sat 16 May
It was finally College Day, and I was extremely relieved to have absolutely no glitches on my side for the powerpoint slides, video show and AV support. The lunch reception was disappointing though in quality. I managed to chat with some of my graduated students before I left to spend time with Jadon.
Sun 17 May
I went to service as usual with my wife. Nowadays cell group is a minor headache. Now that my wife and I had combined our cells, we have a typical number of about ten. There aren't many places that can comfortably house all of us. The location issue would be solved if we stayed in Hall 9 at Expo, but then we would have to settle for terrible food and extremely loud ambient noise. Going to Eastpoint at least gives more options for food, but there is hardly any place for so many of us to sit down together. Added to that is the fact that it would be lunch time and we wouldn't want to hog the seats unnecessarily long after we are done eating.
Today was bad because we really couldn't find a proper place, so we went separate places for lunch. I was at the NTUC food court, which surprisingly had really nice fishball noodles! I had not eaten good food at a food court for ages, so this was a pleasant surprise. My wife and her girls ended at at Niwa Sushi, and they said that there were some tables from New Zealand Natural Ice Cream side, so my boys and I ended up going there to get dessert, and the girls could join us and we had cell group there.
This was going to be a recurring weekly headache. Sigh.
Mon 18 May
This was a regular school day for me. I headed off to Eunos to have my driving lesson in the afternoon, and I almost had a collision today. A car just cut into my lane abruptly without signalling, and braked! I did the wrong thing by quickly checking the rear and switching lane, which my instructor said I shouldn't have and instead should have just braked behind that offending car. Anyway, at least nothing major happened. I find it odd that drivers on the road would do such risky manoeuvres when clearly a L-plate driver is nearby. The odds of getting an accident are so much higher. Even if insurance can cover the costs, it would be so darn inconvenient to be involved in an accident.
Tue 19 May
It was a busy and quiet day in school for me. I was so tired I was looking forward to a decent meal, and I went opposite school to buy back some Hill Street char kway teow. That packet turned out to be the absolute worst I have ever eaten from that stall, and it was not because it was takeaway. Usually the char kway teow from this stall is fried dark (i.e. quite substantial sweet black sauce), but today's one was shockingly pale in colour, and was totally tasteless. There wasn't even any lard in it! Now I don't really fancy lard in particular, and I really love the lard-less one at Beach Road, but this supposedly famous kway teow depends on lard for flavour, so without it, the kway teow was disgusting. Yes, I think it was disgusting to eat. And it was fried by the old man himself. I think I would stay away from the stall for a while. Just in case it was some evil twin frying.
Wed 20 May
It was a packed day in school. My colleague told us about this nice place off Tanjong Katong Road, and offered to drive us there. So for lunch we ate at With a Pinch of Salt. The ambience there was quite nice, and the beef stew I had was quite good as well, but the food there wasn't particularly spectacular. The dumb thing was that my colleague's student called him when we were almost done eating to ask why he wasn't at civics class. It turned out the for the Integrated Programme students, their civics lesson was brought forward, but apparently none of the tutors were informed. In any case, my colleague, being the responsible man that he is, quickly left and drove back. That meant, though, that the rest of us had to take a cab back on our own. So the lunch ended up more expensive that it should have been. Fortunately we made it back to College just before our own civics lesson was about to begin.
Thu 21 May
One of my colleague's husband sells this product which was to boost a car's performance and reduce its fuel consumption. It's a valve and pipe system apparently. According to several colleagues who had installed the device, it really does increase mileage per litre of petrol, and boosts power upslope. We installed it, which took much longer than expected, and tested it, and it was true! The car did have more power. And in subsequent days we found that the mileage did exceed what it used to be. The funny by-product of this was that the engine ran more quietly too. My wife and I were joking that most Singaporeans 'zng' their cars to be (obnoxiously) loud, but we made ours quieter.
Fri 22 May
After my lessons ended, my wife and I drove down to Aljunied to look for my wife's previous gynae. She had missed her period, and the pregnancy test kit she bought appeared positive. We had picked up my mother-in-law and Jadon too to go see the doctor because Jadon seemed to have a bout of flu. (The gynae doubles as a pediatrician sometimes...haha.) Well, it turned out that I will have a second kid arriving on 24 Jan 2010. Woohoo! This time round, the timing of the pregnancy was planned. Now for teachers, birth control is a tricky thing because the special rule for maternity leave for teachers is that they must take it as a four-month block, even if it 'eats up' the holidays. So there are a few prime periods to deliver a baby in which the four-months will not touch the June or December holidays. We aimed for that, and succeeded. Hehe.
Sat 23 May
Today was a total eat-out day. We woke up early for breakfast at Yakun, and then headed over to spend time with Jadon. For lunch, I went to buy Botak Jones fish and chips takeaway. I was surprised to find out that the fish was wrapped in paper, which made sense before the fried fish is usually so hot that it burns the styrofoam packaging that most places use. What was truly impressive was that the paper was hardly stained with oil, which reflected well on Botak Jones surely.
For dinner, my wife and I went out to Elias Mall and ate at Hi Sshou. The place was, as usual, understaffed, and it took a while for us to be served. I think it was because the place offers a buffet, so the waitresses had to work extra hard taking orders and serving. Anyway, I think other than Ministry of Food, this place has the next best ramen and in general, Japanese food.
Sun 24 May
I thought today's sermon was particularly interesting, talking about being as wise as serpents. Ps Khong was hilarious in his jokes and illustrations. For cell group, we ended up at KFC, which had a cluster of tables big enough to accomodate us. However, we couldn't stay there long because there were many people eyeing our seats, so I made the cell group session as short as I could.
Mon 25 May
Highlight of the day was going to 216 market for lunch. Originally I thought I would eat less since I was gradually but steadily putting on weight. However, my resolve was shortlived, so after my bowl of ban mian I went on to eat a plate of ipoh hor fun as well. And have a glass of shiok ice lemon tea.
Tue 26 May
I had no time to go too far to eat today, so I went opposite for lunch. Somehow I didn't have much of an appetite, with a slightly sore throat and a cough, so I only ate yong tau foo for lunch. Even though I added noodles, the portion would have been usually too little for me, but it was filling enough today.
This could only mean one thing: I am falling sick.
Wed 27 May
I went to school to finish some work, but I felt feverish and my nose was blocked to the point of sounding terribly nasal. So by noon time after settling some quotations and vendors stuff, I quickly left to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed that I was down with a cold and had a mild fever, gave me some medication and a MC up till tomorrow.
The blocked nose combined with plenty of phlegm made my nose and throat very uncomfortable, and in the end, I chose to stay home to rest instead of going to cell group, even though my fever had subsided somewhat.
It was a wise choice, because the fever came back in the evening.
Thu 28 May
I rested practically the whole day. Since the fever left, I didn't really suffer much loss of appetite, so I could still eat my usual portions at home. The problem with this illness was that I would feel like I was alright enough to go out, and then when I go to White Sands to buy groceries or something, after a short while I feel terribly weak or lethargic.
Fri 29 May
Since the MC was over, I went back to school. Along the day, I felt increasingly worse, and my blocked nose plus sore throat made me sound muffled and soft. In the end, my colleagues urged me to go take a rest, and agreeably, I think I'm in no condition to teach, so I went to see the doctor once more to get more medication (she only gave me enough for about two days), and stayed home to rest. The sad thing about my 'quarantine' at home was that I missed Jadon! But God was gracious, and let me bump into my mother-in-law and Jadon at 216 market after I saw the doctor, so I carried him for a short while.
Sat 30 May
I rested in the morning, then went over to visit Jadon when I felt a bit better. At least I wasn't coughing much or having a terribly blocked nose. For dinner I went to Pizza Hut with my wife. Since my throat was still a bit sore, I decided not to eat anything I guess would be 'heaty', so I opted for pasta.
Once again the same conclusion: Pizza Hut's pasta sucks. Terribly.
The cream sauce tastes uneven and clumpy, and seems reminiscent of Campbell soup stock that has only a bit of water added. The seafood in the dish was pathetic. The squid was like rubber and were very thinly cut rings. The prawns were shrimps. Really tiny shrimps that when coiled up was about the size of a ten-cent coin. The pasta was just mediocre, and when I eat something that makes me think that I may be able to cook something better, then it really, really must be sucky.
I told my wife to remind me to never order pasta from Pizza Hut. In addition, the mushroom soup tasted dilute and had two tiny slivers of mushroom in it. Great.
Sun 31 May
I wonder if it's the sucky dinner at Pizza Hut, but I woke up feeling the lethargy of the illness, and opted to have a rest at home, giving service a miss today. I left my poor wife to anchor the cell, and to escort those who can make it to Global Day of Prayer.
In the evening I was still coughing with plenty of phlegm, so I went to see the doctor one last time to get some stronger cough syrup. The doctor on duty was a different one, and he was late for evening opening hours by 40 minutes! That was how long I waited even though I was the first patient to be seen. The doctor was extremely chatty, and he was going on and on about mutation, and that in the past people take only 2 or 3 days to recover from flu and cold, but nowadays they take 2 or 3 weeks. He has a point though, saying that because it takes that long to recover from the flu nowadays and MCs don't stretch for that long, it just means that people bring the bug back with them to the workplace and therefore spreads the virus further. Definitely true because I see neighbouring colleagues take turns to fall sick.
Mon 1 Jun
Welcome June holidays! It didn't feel quite like holidays started because I had to go back to school for a SPA meeting. It didn't take as long as I expected, but it was draining nonetheless. After that was over and done with, I headed over to Eunos for driving lessons. Hopefully during the holidays, I can have lessons more frequently. Of course, I enjoy being chauffered by my wife around currently, but I suppose I must take over quickly before her tummy gets too big to sit behind the wheel.
Tue 2 Jun
I had driving lessons in the morning, which was a different experience from driving at 3 pm, my usual lesson time. The traffic there was heavy nonetheless.
Wed 3 Jun
I had driving lessons in the morning again, and in the afternoon, my wife and I headed over to Marina Square. We wanted to do some shopping for new milk bottles for Jadon, and other baby stuff. Along the way, I passed by Action City, and saw my favourite Hanayama Cast Puzzles, so I bought a new level 5 and level 6 puzzle. We decided to have our dinner at Ministry of Food, and once again I verified for myself that the Bugis outlet is still the best, without a shadow of a doubt.
Thu 4 Jun
My wife and I had lunch at Manhattan Fish Market at White Sands. Now they have a promotion for their fish and chips, which had one extra piece of fish thrown in. The lunch set is $9.90, and because we had a late breakfast (hmm...more about breakfast in a while), that was more than enough for us to share, after we added some calamari and coleslaw sides. I think if I ate the fish and chips on my own, I should barely be able to stuff it down on a normal day.
My wife and I fell in love with Superdog! At least, the Superdog breakfast offerings. Let me just say that after eating Superdog's chocolate chip pancake, I would likely never order pancake from McDonalds again if I ate at White Sands' McDonalds. There are always a couple of items on offer. For instance, currently there is the ham and cheese multigrain (sandwich) promo, which has the sandwich and a drink of coffee or flavoured tea, for $3.90. The chocolate chip pancake promo has the pancakes and a similar choice of drink for $2.90! The pancake is thick slabs, and fragrant with taste, unlike McDonalds' thin slices of flat tasting pancake. The chocolate chip was densely spread throughout the pancake, and was good quality dark chocolate. Absolutely fabulous! There are many flavours for the tea to choose from as well, and my wife loves the apple and apricot flavoured ones the most. The best part was that for the pancakes, they provide SCS butter, and not bland margarine (sorry to the health-conscious people, I am pro-butter), and willingly give extra packs out, so I got one to dump into my coffee. It is nice to drink sinfully once in a while. My wife came here for breakfast yesterday while I went for driving and discovered how good the food was, so here I was on her recommendation. We bought a couple of exercise mats from Tom & Stef for baby to crawl on at home, and then we went back to do massive room cleaning of our master bedroom.
Housework is exhausting.
Fri 5 Jun
I think the Superdog workers must be amused. On Wed, they saw my wife come alone. Yesterday they saw my wife come with me. Today, they saw the wife, the husband and the baby! We brought Jadon with us to the place for breakfast. My wife tried their other breakfast set, and their hotdog was really good. I think Superdog will be earning quite a bit of my breakfast money this holidays.
We went to pick up my mother-in-law in the afternoon, and we went to Tampines to shop around a bit. I managed to spot a nice polo-tee from Recoil, which I had a $5 off voucher for. We bought some other stuff for Jadon's use as well. I think Tampines One has excellent nursing room facilities. Although they only have nursing rooms on third and fifth floor, but they come equipped with two small rooms with seats, one big sink and more seats, and two changing-mats side by side at a corner. That by itself is not fantastic, other than the fact that the rooms are brand new and maintained clean, but the thoughtful part was that they have a water dispenser in there that can dispense both hot and cold water, which was great for making milk or cereal if one runs out of hot water. We had a filling dinner at Qi Ji before we went over to Tampines One food court to have the fabulous chendol from Kapitans.
Sat 6 Jun
My wife and I got up early, was joined by Crystal (my wife's cell member) and sent Jadon to my mother-in-law, and picked up my sister-in-law. We were all heading to a friend's wedding. Jaclyn had since left our church, but she had happily settled in her boyfriend (today, husband)'s church. The pastor was quite amusing in his wedding sermon, so that was a good thing, and we met some friends we hadn't seen in a long while. The lunch reception was quite extravagant, with one laksa and one ice cream pushcart, and a satay section. The main courses had fish, scallops, mussels and wasabi prawns, so I guess they must had splurged on the reception. Not to forget the many decorations all around the church building.
Sun 7 jun
My wife and I had breakfast at the NTUC foodcourt at Simei, and we tried this Mian Zhong Mian stall. The wan ton mee was surprisingly good too. The noodles were really of high quality as they advertised on the signboard outside, and the char siew was the traditional roasted kind (not dyed). The only flaws were that the wan ton themselves were just average, and the lard provided wasn't crispy. Now there are two good stalls we have found in that food court, which makes me re-evaluate the place significantly.
After service, the combined cell went to Eighteen Chefs at Eastpoint for lunch. I shared a rootbeer battered fish and chips with my wife because we were still full from breakfast. I think the fish was too oily today or something, because it made my stomach really queasy the whole day. When we were done with cell, we headed over to my wife's grandma's place at Eunos because one of her little (in age, definitely not in size) cousins was celebrating her birthday. Jadon learnt to wave goodbye today! Haha, we don't know why or how he picked it up, but he waved whenever we said "Bye bye" to him. And waved enthusiastically too, just that he kinda looked like the prosperity cat (招财猫) when he waves.
We popped by my in-laws' place to spend more time with Jadon, and at night blood brudder Junzhong and wife-to-be came over to my place to use my scanner. I had promised him I would help him make a wedding montage video, so he came over to pass me the pictures.
Mon 8 Jun
My wife and I planned to spend the whole day with Jadon at my in-laws' place, so I brought some installation discs over and hijacked my sister-in-law's computer (hmm technically it is my wife's computer since she paid for it, and I had a share in fixing it up from Sim Lim) to do the montage. However, Junzhong and wife-to-be wanted to change some pictures, so they neutralized some of my morning effort when Junzhong came by my in-laws' place to pass me some new pictures.
Tue 9 Jun
It was Superdog for breakfast again! I wonder if they recognize us by now. Anyway, they will likely see us a few more times these weeks. After completing some housework, we went over to my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon.
At late evening, Junzhong called me and said that he wanted to change some pictures again, so he came over at half past ten after we reached home to work on the video together with me. Hopefully this would be the last iteration. In any case, I passed him the software installation disc and all the relevant files, since he had seen me work and should have learnt enough to tweak it on his own, since I will be busy the next few days.