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.