I was tempted to make this the longest post ever with 4 months' worth, but I decided not to, because every time I save as draft, the next time I log in, each line spacing doubles, and I have to waste time deleting. So I guess I'd pay off in monthly installments.

It was the ending part of the one-week break regretfully. I had a simple lunch at the Ananas Cafe at the MRT station, and I was saving my appetite for the dinner. Today we were celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday, and we brought her to Chin Lee Restaurant, which is diagonally opposite Block 85 market. We had heard about the food from various friends, and after checking it out on the internet, we found the reviews good enough to give it a shot. We ordered coffee ribs, the fish maw soup, and some other dishes, and all turned out excellent. We were particularly impressed with the desserts, and I especially loved the pumpkin and yam paste, and the black glutinous rice with ice cream.

Sat 12 Sep

My wife was due for a detailed ultrasound scan, so upon our gynae's recommendation, we went to this x-ray centre off Aljunied MRT station. Originally, we thought we found the wrong place, because the centre looked terribly rundown. Firstly, when we walked in, the place looked so dilapidated that it looked like some underground clinic that you may see in some Hong Kong drama/movie or Japanese anime. Secondly, the place was swarmed with foreign workers. While we waited for my wife's turn at the ultrasound, I saw many Indians and PRC workers coming in to do a health checkup, eye and blood test, and injection. I think this place primarily earned from these folks. To be fair, the ultrasound facility was good, and the lady in charge was professional. But one would imagine that such high-tech facilities could be housed in better environments. Anyway, it was enough of a turn-off for my wife that we decided that if we ever had a third child, we'd just go to Thomson Medial Centre and pay more.

Sun 13 Sep

My wife and I went to service as usual, and we had cell group at Eighteen Chefs. After buying a couple of big bags of diapers, we headed down to Elias Mall to Homekeepers. There was a big discount for a maid package, and it was due today, so we went over to pay a deposit first. We like the service enough, and I guess we were fine with getting a maid from this company.

Mon 14 Sep

It was a terribly long day in school today. This was the Fish Files season, which was an inter-disciplinary project between chemistry and biology. My class was due to present today, so I had to be there during the biology periods as well for the presentation. Between the presentations and in the afternoon, I had a few consultation sessions lined up with my Year 2 students, and only managed a pathetic lunch in school for about 15 minutes. Talk about packed to the brim.

Tue 15 Sep

It was an usual day in school, and after school was over, my wife and I went over to my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon. After dinner, we went over to the MacDonald's at Bedok Central to meet Collin to discuss some policy matters, and we took up some additional medical coverage with him.

Wed 16 Sep

It was a long day in school. I met a vendor to settle some Learning Management System setup, and it took up a few hours in a row. There was cell group today, but I had an extremely long meeting in the afternoon regarding Corporate Communications. The thing that made it feel all the more longer was that half of it wasn't even relevant to me. Anyway, I planned to meet Collin for pool but I kept postponing the time because the meeting never seemed to end. Finally, it started pouring, and I asked Collin if he could give me a ride to Marine Parade for cell group. My kind brother-in-Christ agreed and came down to pick me up.

When I went to the gate, he wasn't there. In the end, I called him and realized that he had mistakenly keyed in Tampines JC instead of Temasek, and totally relied on his GPS system, forgetting that I mentioned to him to turn right when he approached Bedok interchange. He was waiting for me outside TPJC! He took some extra time to head down to my school to pick me up, and by then, we lost all opportunity to play pool, so we settled for a quick dinner instead. Not quite the way I was expecting the day to be.

Thu 17 Sep

The highlight of the day was lunch, and my colleague drove a couple of us down to Old Town White Coffee at East Coast. Some other colleagues had gone there recently and raved about the food, so we decided to drop by and check it out ourselves. My colleague ordered some noodle thing, and I tried the nasi lemak. It was somewhat pricey, but the quality was there. I didn't quite like the chicken wing because it was the kind with batter; I like the kind fried directly without batter. Otherwise, it was quite good. The coffee was rich and fragrant, and way more superior to the coffee shop kind, of course.

Fri 18 Sep

It was an usual day in school, and I spent the rest of the day at my in-laws' place. My wife lately had a craving (of sorts) for fast food, so we had been eating at MacDonald's every now and then. Today was one such occasion. I spotted some Jap instant noodles on discount at the nearby Jap store, so I bought a udon and a ramen one to try some other time.

Sat 19 Sep

My wife and I slept in late slightly, and went to Coffee Club for lunch. There was a new menu, and I tried the Captain Crunch pasta, and my wife tried the Wild West. Both were fabulous! The Captain Crunch pasta was basically pasta with deep fried soft shell crab, and it was unbelievably good. I think for such cuisine, Coffee Club ranks extremely high for me.

In the late afternoon, we went over to my in-laws' place, and after spending some time with Jadon there, we brought him home for the weekend. He is so cute!

Sun 20 Sep

We decided to bring Jadon to church with us today. Sure, by now he was manageable, but still, he required that much attention from us that neither my wife nor I could barely absorb the sermon. I did, however, remember enough to do processing with my cell group at KFC after the service.

After cell was done, I popped by IP Zone and spotted these two nice Doraemon tees! Once I verified that I could fit, I bought them, perhaps for nostalgia's sake. Then we brought Jadon back with us to my mother-in-law's place.

Mon 21 Sep

School ended early for me today, but I merely seized that freed up time to go settle administrative matters regarding my coming maid. I went down to Elias Mall to sign the necessary documents, and there were countless forms to sign - so many that it looked scary. The last time I signed so many pieces of paper was when I was taking up some insurance thing.

Tue 22 Sep

A typical day in school, but the highlight of the day was lunch at 216 market. I had the grilled fish fillet, changing the chips to tomato-based spaghetti, and it was awesome! The fish was perfectly-grilled, with crispy edges but tender and succulent meat inside. The mushroom sauce was superb as well, and I think this has got to be one of the best fish served at a Western food stall. The day ended with an unhealthy supper at MacDonald's, complete with ice cream.

Wed 23 Sep

Today was a busy day for some of us. The Research Centre for East Zone is based in our school, and today there was a learning symposium organized. I had already helped design a powerpoint template for the keynote speaker's use, but beyond that, my task was also to present on an action research project we did this year. There was actually food catered, but my colleague, a senior teacher involved in the organizing, was so unimpressed she got us to packet something for her from 216 market.

I think our presentation was unpopular because it was in a fifth floor classroom, but in any case, we presented, and during the Q & A, I sidetracked to talk about doing action research itself, rather than our projects, because I sensed that this was the reason why the teachers signed up, and my intuition was accurate. No point sharing something irrelevant to the audience's needs, I believe.

It had finally begun for us. I don't know why chemistry was rostered to start so late for Prelims, but the essay paper, which was the first paper for chemistry, started today, a week after Prelims had begun. When the paper came in, no one wanted to mark seriously yet, and the whole team headed off to Changi Airport for lunch at Dian Xiao Er. Our level head's birthday fell on today, and he would be leaving for greener pastures soon, so we took the chance to give him a treat. We splurged on an eight-course lunch, with sharks' fin and all. The notable dish was the crocodile meat, which was done superbly, and the fish dish, which had a special gravy that was absolutely delicious. The meal was extremely satisfying for the taste buds, but not for my bottomless pit of a stomach that was still hungry after extra rice. In any case, it wasn't cheap. Even if we didn't factor in treating my level head, it was still about $31 per person.

Still, with good food in the belly, we could now focus on marking. As usual, I cleared about two-thirds of the classes in one sitting by evening time, refusing to bring any work home. For dinner, my wife and I went to 216 market to eat the claypot rice due to a severe lack of choice. I had been telling people that this claypot rice stall is not a claypot rice stall. It merely serves stuff in a claypot, because it tasted like something was cooked elsewhere, but placed in a claypot before serving. However, today's saving grace was the salted duck soup, also in a claypot, but it tasted excellent, except maybe a little too salty. On account of the soup, I would like to give this stall a second chance.

I managed to clear my essay marking by 10 am, so I had free time to clear some other adminstrative work. For lunch, my colleagues and I went to 216 market. Apparently, they had taken a liking to Blue Lagoon, which I had recommended to them. One colleague told me that the fish and chips was excellent, so I ordered one, but changed the fries and salad to spaghetti. I also chatted with the guy, and asked him if he came from a hotel or restaurant and he said neither. I told him that I found it hard to imagine that he was just a normal hawker, because he was able to prepare my medium-rare sirloin steak with precision. He finally admitted that he was a former chef on board Star Cruise. I knew it! I had not met any western food hawker that actually asked how you would want your steak done.

Anyway, when the fish came, it was a huge piece. I took a bite and I was amazed. The fish was very well-breaded, and it was deliciously crispy on the outside, and yet the flesh inside was succulent and did not crumble on cutting. It was big on portion as well, and suddenly I realized that I wouldn't want to pay $7 for Botak Jones fish and chips when this is available for just $4.50. I'm not sure if it was because I chatted with him, but he seemed to have given me a huge serving of spaghetti, which was tasty on its own as well.

After my wife was done with her lessons, we headed over to my in-laws' place. My mother-in-law didn't cook dinner today, so we were left to our own devices. We didn't feel like eating the mediocre claypot rice at 216 market, nor did we want western styled food, and we ended up eating Qiu Lian Ban Mian at the coffee shop. After getting used to the quality of the ban mian at 216 market, this meal tasted terrible. The soup was bland. The ikan bilis was not crispy. The portion of noodles was big, but the noodles also didn't taste as good. Sigh.

Jadon didn't sleep well last night, so neither did we. We woke up earlier than him and went to prepare stuff so that we could bring him back to my in-laws' place and I could go for my driving lesson. I had remembered the timing wrongly, so we were running late. Worse still, my instructor called to ask why I wasn't there. He said he had told me to meet him half an hour earlier than the circuit timing, but I don't remember it. Anyway, I went there and we entered the circuit a bit late, but this time it was a better experience than the previous time.

I wanted to go to the Zendikar prerelease tournament originally, but when I went to my in-laws' place, I found that there was a big quarrel between my father-in-law and the family, so I didn't feel peace of mind to leave them in turmoil. After things settled down a bit and my father-in-law had gone out, I went to have lunch with my wife at 216 market. Everything else I wanted to eat was closed, so I had an upsized bowl of laksa, which was delicious but hot enough to make me sweat a lot.

We went to service as usual, but we were a little late, so we bought curry puffs from Old Chang Kee and pancake with soya bean from Mr Bean. I didn't want to eat too heavy a breakfast, so I didn't buy any pancake for myself, but to my surprise, there was a Starhub promotion which gave out a free soya bean drink and a red bean pancake if the customer is a Starhub subscriber. After the brilliant sermon, we went off to Niwa Sushi for lunch. I had a bowl of udon with some sashimi, but I think the Niwa Sushi at Eunos MRT Station seemed to serve better food. I went off to get a small cake for my newest addition to the cell, Ying Jie, whose birthday falls on Children's Day.

After cell group, we headed over to my wife's grandma's place where my mother-in-law had brought Jadon to. We spent the afternoon there, and some of the aunts came by for a gathering as well. We left after having a light dinner there, but both my wife and I were hungry a short while after. We decided to go to Pizza Hut for dinner. My colleagues had raved about the pasta, and I was curious to the level of improvement. I ordered this porcini mushroom pasta, which was decent, and of course, a vast improvement over the previous menu, but I still found that it was far from fantastic, and I couldn't believe that it was as spectacular as what the commercial advertised it to be. I'll give it another chance on another occasion, and try a different pasta.

I had lessons with my TA 1 class, so I wasn't around to invigilate the chemistry Structured paper. When I returned from my lessons, the papers came in, so I started marking the first class, and took a break halfway to have lunch. We went to 216 market to eat, and I went for the ban mian that I failed to eat the other day. After a nice meal, I headed back to school to slog my marking, and cleared about three-quarter of my marking by 6 pm. Yeah~

I managed to clear my structured paper marking early in the morning once my colleagues passed me the scripts they brought home. I love being able to mark fast - it frees up so much time to do all the many other things that I have to do. For lunch, a few colleagues and I headed off to Bedok Interchange. I had my super-upsized bowl of noodles from Teo's Noodles, because the weather was so ridiculously hot that I didn't feel like going for curry noodles.

After my wife ended her lessons, we went over to Bedok central to do some grocery-shopping and spent the rest of the day with Jadon.

I spent the morning settling overdue administrative tasks, and for lunch, a whole bunch of us went out to Old Airport Road. I felt like having Hokkien Mee, so I went to buy. Unfortunately, they just started preparing a new batch, so I waited there for at least ten minutes, but of course, it was good enough to be worth the wait. I didn't think the noodles was enough, so I had a bowl of fish soup on top of it.

I hung around in school to finish up my work, and in the evening, I headed down to Marine Parade. I was having cell group there at night, but I met Collin earlier at about 5.30 pm to play pool. It was really nostalgic, as the last time I played pool should be a couple of years ago. I was happy to note that there wasn't as much deterioration as I thought, but of course, was still somewhat rusty. The odd thing was that the tremors hit the Parkway Builders Centre during one game, and the whole building felt like it was swaying, since we were at the tenth floor. At first, we still didn't realize there was a tremor, and Collin took very long to aim before he stood up and asked me if the floor was shaking. By then, the lights above the pool table was swinging, and even the pool balls were rocking left and right. We were hesitant as to whether to evacuate (the building was pretty old, after all), but I thought it unsafe to run off without grabbing my identity card, and irresponsible to not pay up before leaving. In any case, the tremors lasted only about 3 minutes. We decided to play on, but another wave hit us, but lasted mere moments. What a memorable pool game that was. Shups came to join us a while after, and we played a while more before grabbing dinner and going for cell group. It is interesting that after all the massive church youth network reshuffling, all my mahjong kakis from three different networks somehow ended up in the same network! Hahaha. Mahjong for cell bonding!

I took childcare leave today, but primarily (again) to settle household chores. I cleared whatever chores I could despite not feeling in the pink of health, and went to renew my PDL at SingPost. After that, I thought since I had time, I might as well head down to Tampines to pick up my altered pants from G2000, which was about a week overdue from the date they were supposed to call me to collect. In any case, the pants were ready, but upon seeing the latest promotion, which was to spend $150 and get a prestige membership (15% off usual, 50% off during birthday, and other special promotions), I thought, "why not?" and shopped around. I did find some nice shirts, so I easily chalked up enough for the membership.

After I was done with clothes buying, I went to Tampines Mall to check out the mooncake fair. We had no time to come down, but every year we would buy this snowskin assortment from Fairmont Swissotel Sze Chuan Court Restaurant. When I went there, the assortment one was sold out! They only had individual flavours left. The guy there was nice enough to offer me a mix of two flavours after hearing my vocalized disappointment, so I got the rum and raisins one and the baileys one. Their snowskin mooncake has really good snowskin, lotus paste, and instead of the usual egg yolk, there's a ball of chocolate with liquor in it. My wife loves it, but unfortunately, she had been pregnant both recent years and had to abstain from the alcohol heart of it. I went home to dump the purchases, and then went to spend the rest of the day with Jadon.

It was a fruitful morning, spent on marking and clearing administrative work. For lunch, my colleague wanted to eat at eBlackboard, which I knew had moved from the coffee shop near the school, but I wasn't sure where it had moved to. It turned out that the stall moved to a remote coffee shop almost reaching the MRT tracks. Anyway, I ordered spaghetti carbonara, which was my colleague's little daughter's favourite, and it was fabulous! I like carbonara to be served with the egg yolk sitting nicely on top, waiting for you to burst it and let it flow into the pasta sauce. The pasta sauce was thick, creamy and fragrant, and I enjoyed the meal totally. My colleague ordered pig innards soup, which looked pretty good, so if I go again, I will make sure I check that out.

In the afternoon, I helped to invigilate the biology paper, and right after I was done, I rushed off to meet my driving instructor who came down to school to pick me up, so I drove from school down to Kaki Bukit area. I think I am really falling sick, and I was struggling to keep awake from the kind of lethargy that kicks in with illness. Fortunately, it wasn't so bad to affect my driving, but I made sure I rubbed my eyes wide open at every red light before moving off.

After Jadon kept us waking up several times at night, he gave us a morning call at 7+ am. We got him changed, fed and ready to go, and headed down to my in-laws' place. My wife and I took turns to eat the wan ton noodles behind the carpark we usually park at, which serves excellent noodles by the way, with well-roasted char siew, crispy chunks of lard, and delicious black sauce (not the ketchup kind). No one was at home actually, so we settled Jadon down, got him to play and drink milk before the three of us all went for a nap.

My stomach was still acting weird, and I had diarrhoea several times today. I hope it really wasn't a bout of gastric flu, or even if it was, I hope I recover from it as soon as possible. My driving test is coming up, and I want to be in tip-top condition. For lunch, we visited Blue Lagoon at 216 market once more. My wife was dissatisfied with the fish I tookaway for her, so she wanted to eat it dine-in, and it turned out much better than the last. I tried the grilled fish, and it was wonderful. Succulent and yet crispy edged on the outside. It had a nice milky-buttery taste to it, so I wasn't sure what was used as marinate, but it was delicious. For dessert, we had chendol, and it was quite good too.

I spent most of the day resting as my stomach was acting up. The only good thing was that it had not shrunk my usual appetite.