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.