Thursday, September 03, 2009
Tue 18 Aug
It was a dreadfully long day in school. Other than the usual lessons, consultation and other work, I had to man the research centre till the school closed for the students to revise there. The year 2 tutors took turns to stay behind so as to look after the place as well as provide consultation to the students there. I was dead beat by the time it was over...but was re-energized when I see Jadon coming to the door to be carried when I reached my in-laws' place!
Wed 19 Aug
Today was a sad day in school. Other than remedials, administrative work, lessons and consultations, we still had a prelim exam meeting right smack during lunch. I was starving by the time it was over. Fortunately, my wife bought lunch for me, so I took a few minutes to gobble it all down, and went on for lessons.
I stayed back in school to finish some work, then met with Collin at Bugis area. We ate at the relocated hawker centre, and I had the Hock Hai curry noodles there, but by that time of the day, the curry was so thick and concentrated it became like gravy, so I didn't quite enjoy it. I hitched a ride from Collin to Touch Community Theatre where we had a Youthnet 144 meeting.
Thu 20 Aug
My wife was feeling curious about Claypot Fun, a shop at Big Splash which she saw featured on TV yesterday, so we drove there for lunch. We had to wait 20 minutes for the food to come, but it was well worth the wait. The sausages and chicken in the claypot were so tender and delicious. The rice had just the right tinge of burnt fragrance, and the salted vegetables and duck soup was absolutely addictive. It was, of course, more pricey than usual claypot rice, but I think the quality was worth the money. And there was free parking!
We went to the neighbouring soup to have dessert, and that was delicious too. A satisfying meal to last a long day ahead.
Fri 21 Aug
Today was another long day, but I hung in there because it was my very last revision lecture that I had to stay behind for. Actually it was quite a good time to lecture at LT4 because the students were all conscientious with their preparations, and they asked many questions. I like interactions in this form.
Sat 22 Aug
My wife and I woke up earlier to do housework so as to clear the room for Jadon to come home to tonight. We drove out to Downtown East, and ate lunch at Mr Chicken Rice. I ordered a large milk tea from the Chipshop, and we headed back to finish the chores before heading down to church for service.
Sun 23 Aug
My wife and I brought Jadon out to White Sands with us, and we ate breakfast at Superdog. It was a highly interrupted breakfast as I was carrying Jadon half the time. That was extremely filling, and it was important as shortly after, we went down to a colleague's house to celebrate the full month of her child. We stayed a while there, and surprisingly Jadon was very subdued, perhaps due to unfamiliarity of surroundings. I bumped into an old schoolmate, who happened to be a church mate of my colleague, so we chatted a while before we headed to my in-laws' place. For dinner, I had intended to get something from Botak Jones, but the queue was so ridiculously long that I ordered hor fun from the vegetarian stall for my wife and myself.
Mon 24 Aug
One colleague drove out for lunch, so we went out to 216 market. I ate the ban mian as usual, and I realized that lately we had been so busy that we did not drive out for lunch so often. In fact it was specifically attributed to remedials and consultation sessions, along with prelim exam discussion meetings. In the night, my wife and I needed a desperate break, so we went to grab supper at McDonalds.
Tue 25 Aug
I had a typical day doing some administrative work, and in the afternoon, I went down to Katong Plaza to sell some Magic cards in order to acquire some new ones. Now I had found one contract and one relief teacher who play Magic as well! Looks like the future prereleases should have some company.
Wed 26 Aug
It was a normal, long day today, and we spent the rest of the afternoon and night at my in-laws' place playing with Jadon.
Thu 27 Aug
Today my wife had less things on hand to rush, so we drove out to eat at Beach Rd Prawn Mee off Katong stretch. We had, of course, prawn noodles, and ordered the excellent ngoh hiang. Halfway through our lunch, the parking attendant (is that what they are called?) came by. All the shop staff were shouting warning to their customers, many of whom scrambled off to put parking coupons. Interesting service there.
In the evening after lessons, my wife and I went down to City Hall area. My wife's filling in the tooth cracked again, so she needed urgent attention. After that was settled, we went over to Marina Square to do some shopping. I bought a couple of pieces of apparel, and also two sets of tees and shorts for Jadon, and we went to Ministry of Food for dinner. I have found a new favourite bento to order: the salmon belly teriyaki sukiyaki set! It's quite a mouthful to say, but the salmon belly in teriyaki sauce is heavenly! The salmon belly fats literally ooze out in the mouth, and its fragrance is unspeakably invigorating. Of course, the sukiyaki soup was also rich in flavour, and certainly, the unagi hot stone rice upgrade can't go wrong possibly.
Jadon was not asleep yet by the time we were done, so we popped by to show him the new clothes I bought for him. As usual, he went to play with the tags.
Fri 28 Aug
After a long day in school, we went to my in-law's place to spend time with Jadon. Today bore a stamp-buying ordeal. I needed to mail something out urgently, so I needed stamps. I walked over to Fairprice first, but the counter lady said that they no longer sold any. I decided to go over to the SAM machine at the interchange. After queueing a short while and helping the clueless guy in front of me with his transactions, I realized that the machine couldn't print stamp labels! I decided to talk over to Cheers to see if they sold, and they did not. I walked all the way back to Fairprice to the Mr Bean stall next to it, as my wife wanted a pancake. In the square in front of the stall, there were many of those toy motor and car-rides for kids. I had this sickening feeling that my feet would get run over, since I was so unlucky with the stamps, so I steered clear of all the kids. When I was queueing at the Mr Bean stall, the woman in front of me was on the step before the counter, and she suddenly lost balance, stepped down, and it was right smack on my right foot. Hmmm. My gut feelings are quite accurate apparently, just that my foot suffered a slightly different fate. In the end, I walked to the Bedok Post Office to get the labels, so it was one big detour.
Sat 29 Aug
My wife and I wanted to clean up the house so that we could bring Jadon home, so we spent the whole day at home. We only went out during lunch to White Sands to eat, and in the evening to church service. For lunch, we ate at Coffee Club, and the food was fabulous! There were some new dishes out on promotion, so we decided to try them. After all, I received a SMS that entitled me to a free dessert if I ordered two pastas/baked rice from the new items menu. I had the Snapper Delight, and my wife had the Carbonara Moderna. The snapper delight was a penne dish with pan-fried snappers, served in lobster bisque sauce. It was so delicious I actually dipped whatever food I had into the sauce to finish every bit of it. My wife's carbonara was really good too, and it stands till now, after trying about 70% of their menu, existing items or new items, that we have not eaten anything even close to average. Everything so far has been excellent, with perhaps the spaghetti carbonara ranking at above average. Coffee Club for me has become a 'cannot-go-wrong' restaurant choice.
Sun 30 Aug
After Jadon woke up, we cleaned, fed and dressed him, and took him with us to Tampines where we had lunch at Ding Tai Fung. We bumped into church friends there, and my wife's uncle and family as well. We window-shopped for a while before heading over to my in-laws' place. We decided to come home earlier to do laundry, and when I reached home, I discovered that my third hamster had passed away. Actually he already showed signs of frailty much earlier. He was quite a chubby one, but had thinned significantly last month. Suddenly he seemed to have lost control of his lower body and once in a while as he scurried around, he fell, as if he couldn't control his hind legs. Considering all this, I think his life force was strong because he really hung in there, and despite his almost handicapped status, he was struggling around the cage. Maybe this was his punishment for killing my first hamster. Hmm. Anyway, it felt odd not having any hamster around to feed and play with.
Mon 31 Aug
It was Staff Day celebrations today. After a period long bonding session with my class, which bought a chocolate cake with 'Happy Teachers' Day' on it, we went to the hall to watch a series of performances. The skit by the new teachers was quite amusing, and when it was over, my wife and I went to grab some fish noodles and spent the afternoon with Jadon. We originally wanted to bring him to the Staff Day Dinner in the evening, but he just woke up when we had to go. Good thing we didn't, because no one else brought kids along. The whole dinner was marked by many teachers singing their hearts out, and ended close to 10 pm.
Tue 1 Sep
It's Teachers' Day, but just like any other holiday, it automatically becomes Jadon day. Jadon woke us up from time to time, but he finally decided to get out of bed at around 9.30 am. After settling his feed, changing his diapers (and he gave us shit...literally), we made our way down to my wife's grandma's place where my mother-in-law had gone. We left Jadon in the hands of many relatives, and we headed down to Niwa Sushi for a good lunch. At that price, I think the food there was very good. The chawanmushi was great, and I had two servings of salmon belly on top of a hana maki. And a main beef yakiniku. Together with my wife's teriyaki chicken, the whole thing was a low $25.50. High perhaps for expenditure at this shop, but cheap enough for me to satisfy my hunger.
In the afternoon, I went to get a haircut, and brought Jadon along for his. I think he recognized the salon, and he looked panicky once we stepped in. The moment we started, he cried and cried whenever the shaver touched his head. Till now he has been very consistent. He doesn't like his head to be touched.
Wed 2 Sep
I had a long day in school, with many consultation sessions and meetings. I had so little time left at the end of the day that I took a cab at peak hour to my in-laws' place for just a brief half an hour with Jadon before making my way down to Marine Parade. I met Collin for dinner at the hawker centre, and then we went to our cell meeting. Today was special because Ps Eugene, the head of the Youthnet came down to talk to us and to answer our queries and address our concerns regarding the recent massive reshuffling of people. The whole session ended fairly late, but I think it was a productive time.
When my wife and I reached home, we couldn't find anything to watch and ended up watching The Moment of Truth. I think this should be the scariest show (for the contestant) even compared to Fear Factor! At least from my Asian perspective, the prospect of losing face could be more feared than eating worms and cockroaches. I went to check out the internet and here how it works. The contestant who comes on stage had previously answered a huge series of questions while attached to a polygraph (lie detector), and whether he or she was telling the truth was already recorded. During the game show, the contestant is asked questions from that long list, and each tier of questions become more and more personal. In today's show, as the contest was moving up beyond $100000, she had basically revealed on national TV, with her husband, parents, and siblings in front of the camera, that she had stolen money while working, thought she should have been married to her ex, and had sexual relations with someone else after marriage. The biggest punch was the question: "Are you a good person?", to which she answered yes, and the machine said it was false! I guess that meant she had always been lying to herself that she was a good person while some part of her felt otherwise.
To me, this is an interesting premise for a show, which takes reality TV to a different dimension. Reality TV to me was originally meant to be realistic and honest, but the Hawthorne effect would suggest that it was impossible to do so when you know you are being filmed. This one had to deal with absolute honesty, and the most perverse fact of the show was that the audience loves gossip. The question to ask is this: why are we possibly engrossed with the dirty linen of someone we don't know? When I say 'don't know', I don't mean acquainted with, because I think many people are engrossed with knowing tabloid trash about celebrities and all, even though we don't personally know any of them, but we know of them. In this case, we are looking at an ordinary person. The other interesting things was that the audience boo-ed each time the contestant answered honestly to a question, admitting her failings. I immediately recalled the instance in the bible when the people were about to stone a prostitute, and Jesus challenged them that the person without sin can cast the first stone, and none did. In all honesty, I'm not sure how many people I know, including myself, can put myself on stage to scrutiny, including every misdeed in the past. In some weird aspect, I think the show is almost Christian, in that it forces introspection, and brings to point that everyone is, in their own way, a sinner to begin with. The only thing missing from the show is perhaps the idea of divine forgiveness and grace.
It was a dreadfully long day in school. Other than the usual lessons, consultation and other work, I had to man the research centre till the school closed for the students to revise there. The year 2 tutors took turns to stay behind so as to look after the place as well as provide consultation to the students there. I was dead beat by the time it was over...but was re-energized when I see Jadon coming to the door to be carried when I reached my in-laws' place!
Wed 19 Aug
Today was a sad day in school. Other than remedials, administrative work, lessons and consultations, we still had a prelim exam meeting right smack during lunch. I was starving by the time it was over. Fortunately, my wife bought lunch for me, so I took a few minutes to gobble it all down, and went on for lessons.
I stayed back in school to finish some work, then met with Collin at Bugis area. We ate at the relocated hawker centre, and I had the Hock Hai curry noodles there, but by that time of the day, the curry was so thick and concentrated it became like gravy, so I didn't quite enjoy it. I hitched a ride from Collin to Touch Community Theatre where we had a Youthnet 144 meeting.
Thu 20 Aug
My wife was feeling curious about Claypot Fun, a shop at Big Splash which she saw featured on TV yesterday, so we drove there for lunch. We had to wait 20 minutes for the food to come, but it was well worth the wait. The sausages and chicken in the claypot were so tender and delicious. The rice had just the right tinge of burnt fragrance, and the salted vegetables and duck soup was absolutely addictive. It was, of course, more pricey than usual claypot rice, but I think the quality was worth the money. And there was free parking!
We went to the neighbouring soup to have dessert, and that was delicious too. A satisfying meal to last a long day ahead.
Fri 21 Aug
Today was another long day, but I hung in there because it was my very last revision lecture that I had to stay behind for. Actually it was quite a good time to lecture at LT4 because the students were all conscientious with their preparations, and they asked many questions. I like interactions in this form.
Sat 22 Aug
My wife and I woke up earlier to do housework so as to clear the room for Jadon to come home to tonight. We drove out to Downtown East, and ate lunch at Mr Chicken Rice. I ordered a large milk tea from the Chipshop, and we headed back to finish the chores before heading down to church for service.
Sun 23 Aug
My wife and I brought Jadon out to White Sands with us, and we ate breakfast at Superdog. It was a highly interrupted breakfast as I was carrying Jadon half the time. That was extremely filling, and it was important as shortly after, we went down to a colleague's house to celebrate the full month of her child. We stayed a while there, and surprisingly Jadon was very subdued, perhaps due to unfamiliarity of surroundings. I bumped into an old schoolmate, who happened to be a church mate of my colleague, so we chatted a while before we headed to my in-laws' place. For dinner, I had intended to get something from Botak Jones, but the queue was so ridiculously long that I ordered hor fun from the vegetarian stall for my wife and myself.
Mon 24 Aug
One colleague drove out for lunch, so we went out to 216 market. I ate the ban mian as usual, and I realized that lately we had been so busy that we did not drive out for lunch so often. In fact it was specifically attributed to remedials and consultation sessions, along with prelim exam discussion meetings. In the night, my wife and I needed a desperate break, so we went to grab supper at McDonalds.
Tue 25 Aug
I had a typical day doing some administrative work, and in the afternoon, I went down to Katong Plaza to sell some Magic cards in order to acquire some new ones. Now I had found one contract and one relief teacher who play Magic as well! Looks like the future prereleases should have some company.
Wed 26 Aug
It was a normal, long day today, and we spent the rest of the afternoon and night at my in-laws' place playing with Jadon.
Thu 27 Aug
Today my wife had less things on hand to rush, so we drove out to eat at Beach Rd Prawn Mee off Katong stretch. We had, of course, prawn noodles, and ordered the excellent ngoh hiang. Halfway through our lunch, the parking attendant (is that what they are called?) came by. All the shop staff were shouting warning to their customers, many of whom scrambled off to put parking coupons. Interesting service there.
In the evening after lessons, my wife and I went down to City Hall area. My wife's filling in the tooth cracked again, so she needed urgent attention. After that was settled, we went over to Marina Square to do some shopping. I bought a couple of pieces of apparel, and also two sets of tees and shorts for Jadon, and we went to Ministry of Food for dinner. I have found a new favourite bento to order: the salmon belly teriyaki sukiyaki set! It's quite a mouthful to say, but the salmon belly in teriyaki sauce is heavenly! The salmon belly fats literally ooze out in the mouth, and its fragrance is unspeakably invigorating. Of course, the sukiyaki soup was also rich in flavour, and certainly, the unagi hot stone rice upgrade can't go wrong possibly.
Jadon was not asleep yet by the time we were done, so we popped by to show him the new clothes I bought for him. As usual, he went to play with the tags.
Fri 28 Aug
After a long day in school, we went to my in-law's place to spend time with Jadon. Today bore a stamp-buying ordeal. I needed to mail something out urgently, so I needed stamps. I walked over to Fairprice first, but the counter lady said that they no longer sold any. I decided to go over to the SAM machine at the interchange. After queueing a short while and helping the clueless guy in front of me with his transactions, I realized that the machine couldn't print stamp labels! I decided to talk over to Cheers to see if they sold, and they did not. I walked all the way back to Fairprice to the Mr Bean stall next to it, as my wife wanted a pancake. In the square in front of the stall, there were many of those toy motor and car-rides for kids. I had this sickening feeling that my feet would get run over, since I was so unlucky with the stamps, so I steered clear of all the kids. When I was queueing at the Mr Bean stall, the woman in front of me was on the step before the counter, and she suddenly lost balance, stepped down, and it was right smack on my right foot. Hmmm. My gut feelings are quite accurate apparently, just that my foot suffered a slightly different fate. In the end, I walked to the Bedok Post Office to get the labels, so it was one big detour.
Sat 29 Aug
My wife and I wanted to clean up the house so that we could bring Jadon home, so we spent the whole day at home. We only went out during lunch to White Sands to eat, and in the evening to church service. For lunch, we ate at Coffee Club, and the food was fabulous! There were some new dishes out on promotion, so we decided to try them. After all, I received a SMS that entitled me to a free dessert if I ordered two pastas/baked rice from the new items menu. I had the Snapper Delight, and my wife had the Carbonara Moderna. The snapper delight was a penne dish with pan-fried snappers, served in lobster bisque sauce. It was so delicious I actually dipped whatever food I had into the sauce to finish every bit of it. My wife's carbonara was really good too, and it stands till now, after trying about 70% of their menu, existing items or new items, that we have not eaten anything even close to average. Everything so far has been excellent, with perhaps the spaghetti carbonara ranking at above average. Coffee Club for me has become a 'cannot-go-wrong' restaurant choice.
Sun 30 Aug
After Jadon woke up, we cleaned, fed and dressed him, and took him with us to Tampines where we had lunch at Ding Tai Fung. We bumped into church friends there, and my wife's uncle and family as well. We window-shopped for a while before heading over to my in-laws' place. We decided to come home earlier to do laundry, and when I reached home, I discovered that my third hamster had passed away. Actually he already showed signs of frailty much earlier. He was quite a chubby one, but had thinned significantly last month. Suddenly he seemed to have lost control of his lower body and once in a while as he scurried around, he fell, as if he couldn't control his hind legs. Considering all this, I think his life force was strong because he really hung in there, and despite his almost handicapped status, he was struggling around the cage. Maybe this was his punishment for killing my first hamster. Hmm. Anyway, it felt odd not having any hamster around to feed and play with.
Mon 31 Aug
It was Staff Day celebrations today. After a period long bonding session with my class, which bought a chocolate cake with 'Happy Teachers' Day' on it, we went to the hall to watch a series of performances. The skit by the new teachers was quite amusing, and when it was over, my wife and I went to grab some fish noodles and spent the afternoon with Jadon. We originally wanted to bring him to the Staff Day Dinner in the evening, but he just woke up when we had to go. Good thing we didn't, because no one else brought kids along. The whole dinner was marked by many teachers singing their hearts out, and ended close to 10 pm.
Tue 1 Sep
It's Teachers' Day, but just like any other holiday, it automatically becomes Jadon day. Jadon woke us up from time to time, but he finally decided to get out of bed at around 9.30 am. After settling his feed, changing his diapers (and he gave us shit...literally), we made our way down to my wife's grandma's place where my mother-in-law had gone. We left Jadon in the hands of many relatives, and we headed down to Niwa Sushi for a good lunch. At that price, I think the food there was very good. The chawanmushi was great, and I had two servings of salmon belly on top of a hana maki. And a main beef yakiniku. Together with my wife's teriyaki chicken, the whole thing was a low $25.50. High perhaps for expenditure at this shop, but cheap enough for me to satisfy my hunger.
In the afternoon, I went to get a haircut, and brought Jadon along for his. I think he recognized the salon, and he looked panicky once we stepped in. The moment we started, he cried and cried whenever the shaver touched his head. Till now he has been very consistent. He doesn't like his head to be touched.
Wed 2 Sep
I had a long day in school, with many consultation sessions and meetings. I had so little time left at the end of the day that I took a cab at peak hour to my in-laws' place for just a brief half an hour with Jadon before making my way down to Marine Parade. I met Collin for dinner at the hawker centre, and then we went to our cell meeting. Today was special because Ps Eugene, the head of the Youthnet came down to talk to us and to answer our queries and address our concerns regarding the recent massive reshuffling of people. The whole session ended fairly late, but I think it was a productive time.
When my wife and I reached home, we couldn't find anything to watch and ended up watching The Moment of Truth. I think this should be the scariest show (for the contestant) even compared to Fear Factor! At least from my Asian perspective, the prospect of losing face could be more feared than eating worms and cockroaches. I went to check out the internet and here how it works. The contestant who comes on stage had previously answered a huge series of questions while attached to a polygraph (lie detector), and whether he or she was telling the truth was already recorded. During the game show, the contestant is asked questions from that long list, and each tier of questions become more and more personal. In today's show, as the contest was moving up beyond $100000, she had basically revealed on national TV, with her husband, parents, and siblings in front of the camera, that she had stolen money while working, thought she should have been married to her ex, and had sexual relations with someone else after marriage. The biggest punch was the question: "Are you a good person?", to which she answered yes, and the machine said it was false! I guess that meant she had always been lying to herself that she was a good person while some part of her felt otherwise.
To me, this is an interesting premise for a show, which takes reality TV to a different dimension. Reality TV to me was originally meant to be realistic and honest, but the Hawthorne effect would suggest that it was impossible to do so when you know you are being filmed. This one had to deal with absolute honesty, and the most perverse fact of the show was that the audience loves gossip. The question to ask is this: why are we possibly engrossed with the dirty linen of someone we don't know? When I say 'don't know', I don't mean acquainted with, because I think many people are engrossed with knowing tabloid trash about celebrities and all, even though we don't personally know any of them, but we know of them. In this case, we are looking at an ordinary person. The other interesting things was that the audience boo-ed each time the contestant answered honestly to a question, admitting her failings. I immediately recalled the instance in the bible when the people were about to stone a prostitute, and Jesus challenged them that the person without sin can cast the first stone, and none did. In all honesty, I'm not sure how many people I know, including myself, can put myself on stage to scrutiny, including every misdeed in the past. In some weird aspect, I think the show is almost Christian, in that it forces introspection, and brings to point that everyone is, in their own way, a sinner to begin with. The only thing missing from the show is perhaps the idea of divine forgiveness and grace.