Stories of me and myself

What should the Attitude be?

2007-07-26T13:59:00.000+08:00

In reference to the previous post about being either a carrot, a hard-boiled egg or coffee bean... err... can I be beef instead? Medium will do... yummy mama mia! But overcook it and it gets all stiff and chewy. So just a little hardship will do? Haha!

Ok, I think I've been all three... a carrot, a hard-boiled egg and a coffee bean.

When faced with adversity, I can hang on, then wither and give way. Sometimes the stress really gets to me... when there are deadlines, irreducible workload which in fact just keeps growing, random unforseen situations, unappreciative people, etc... I grow soft, broken, and threaten to dissolve into a mushy carrot soup. Add cream and you'll have creamy carrot paste!

On the other hand, I can easily harden. I HIBERNATE. I talk only necessarily, and ignore when it doesn't concern me. I am serious and have no expression on my face. My only concern is to focus on completing the tasks at hand. And at times, I grow bitter (though hard-boiled egg isn't bitter!). I get frustrated at the things I have to do - the unnecessary ones, which keep vying for precious time away from more important things. And this results in a cumulative causation - bitterness at other people. Yes, I do survive and grow from the experience... but I emerge unhappily. Harder than a hard-boiled egg. Stone, not rock. Stone has no smile. Rock has a life. =)

Coffeebean. Yep, I've been a coffeebean too. But this really depends on how enthusiastic I am over the matter... and how much I believe in it. I'm not one who goes out to influence people, (therefore I can never qualify as a politician... in any case, I don't like to sweettalk nor do PR when I don't see a point in it. So yeah, I can be rather politically-incorrect, as I prefer to speak my mind! Or just keep mum. Yeah, no keep mummy then where's she gonna go??) but rather, I just engage in my own enthusiasm and do as much as possible to make whatever I believe in become reality. And the end result is usually elation, and a 'high' from the adrenaline rush. *grin*

For example, I badly wanted my Geography fieldtrip to take off. And despite all the tribulation, it finally did. Although I was tempted to just give it up when the going was too tough. And it was indeed a blessing, because the lives of those who participated were touched by an unforgettable experience of a lifetime, including myself of course! Heh.

So yeah, many a times, it all depends on our mindset. What do we want to gain at the end? What do we want the outcome to be? How much are we willing to give? We can't control the circumstances, but we can definitely have a say in our attitude towards things that don't go our way. Sometimes it's all about the will power. How much do we want it? A LOT? Then work towards it! (Heh. Too much of motivational students who failed ALL subjects even though we are nearing the 'A's!)

ARE YOU A CARROT, AN EGG, OR A COFFEE BEAN?

2007-07-26T13:51:00.000+08:00

Ctl-C Ctl-V this story as I thought it's quite interesting...

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as if as soon as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen.The mother filled three pots with water.In the first, she placed carrots.In the second she placed eggs.And the last she placed ground coffee beans.She let them sit and boil without saying a word. About twenty minutes later, she turned off the burners.She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she said, "Tell me what you see."
"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. (You know the tone of voice.)
She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did, and noted that they felt soft. She then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg inside. Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, "So, what's the point, mother?" (Remember the tone of voice.)

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity - boiling water - but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid center. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its insides had become hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water...they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter.
"When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot , an egg, or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat?

Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship, or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my outer shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart? Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water - the very circumstances that bring the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor of the bean. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you instead of letting it change you. When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level? How do you handle Adversity?

ARE YOU A CARROT, AN EGG, OR A COFFEE BEAN?

When technology plays tricks...

2007-07-25T13:15:00.000+08:00

When technology plays tricks, you can either give up totally, or you can fight back.

Why do I say so?

My laptop refused to project during my first H2 Geography Lecture. How scary is that? I called the technician... and we worked out all possibilities. We changed the connecting wire, we restarted the computer, we restarted the projector, etc. But to no avail! And all that took half an hour! And I was supposed to rush the lecture as we were already behind time in completing the syllabus! Oh well...

I could have just said,
"Sorry... the laptop failed. Lecture cancelled." and make it up some other time.

But I didn't. I ran all the way back to the staffroom and desperately borrowed a laptop and transferred the data over. And when I plugged it in, it worked immediately! And the surprising thing? The kids cheered! Haha! You would have expected them to pout or whine right? Quite strange, this bunch of kids! Heh. So I carried on with the lecture, entertaining them and having a whale of a time myself.

Later during tutorial, I tried the silly laptop again but it decided that, no, it's not gonna project anything! Mischievous fella... I shall put him in hibernation. See if he freaks out!

I had a bright spark! I sat on the table, put the laptop on my lap and had the kids gather around me, so that they could all see the screen. I split them up into smaller classes, so there are at most 15 in each class. So cozy the tutorials were. Close-up, good interaction and laughter. Students got comfortable at clarifying doubts too. So I thought the tutorials went quite well. Heh.

In addition, I distributed huge world maps to all the students. Got them to identify the convergent and divergent boundaries, and identify some landforms. Makes it stick in their heads, hopefully. And I had a lot of fun getting them to identify this and that, and watching their bewildered faces! Heh. Although I had pretty animation and flash videos to show them, obviously they couldn't see. So I resorted to old-school explanations. Which worked quite well too.

Point was, it was quite cool. Brings out new ideas / innovation, when we are put in situations which do not go according to plan.

And I thank God for the rapport I have with the kids.
Makes everything so much more bearable and even enjoyable! =)
I feel rejuvenated, even though I'm tired. Although this sounds like a paradox in itself! Heh.

Innocent Happiness

2007-07-08T10:58:00.000+08:00

I haven't felt happy in a long while... maybe due to stress and all.

But, I am light-hearted this time round due to several factors. And it feels good!

I am happy because...
God gave me another day to live.
He freed my Saturday of activities.
He allowed me to sleep in and catch up on much-needed sleep.
He made it rain this morning so that it was cool weather and I could snuggle under the covers with a grin on my face.
I had time to email Gizmo!
Somebody called to ask if I wanted 40 cents dao huay breakfast.
Somebody was happy to see me.
Dao huay stall and meemee stall were opened.
I ate yummy 40 cents dao huay!
We changed our minds and ate ball ball mee at Bishan instead.
Ball ball mee had new sweet-and-sour chilli!

Somebody loves me and cares for me.
I got to play Mariposa for an extended period of time and gave up only when the game spoilt.
I did my marking at a relaxed pace, and was confident about my marking.
I watched Wu Jinru acting in a stoopid show.
I watched the Live Earth concert.
I watched "Condor Heroes" with my mummy and had a lot of fun imitating the freaks in the show, and commenting on how ridiculous the characters were.
Sitting there enjoying the show with mummy was a blessing in itself.
My mummy cooked steamed fish for me.
My mummy purposely went to withdraw $10 to buy durian, and tried hard to convince me that the durian was worth it.
My mummy had worms in her tummy, and persuaded me to be likewise as greedy.
Somebody entertained me over the phone.

I completed several scripts. On the way to completion. On the war to declaring victory over the H2 scripts, and to declaring war upon the H1 scripts.

My sword, shield and me.

2007-07-04T09:19:00.000+08:00

I'm busy warring. Stacks to slay. At times I strategise and take them down slowly. At times I just whack with all my might. Oh my, it takes up so much energy! Slaying is my favourite past time now, by default. SOoo many to slay, and I'm the only warrior around, amongst this warring stacks, which conspire somehow to squeeze every bit of energy and mark from me.

So now you've guessed? I'm slaying the exam scripts, with my trustee red pen as my sword, and my blanko as my shield.

I can't decide whether to rejoice when I see a somewhat blank script and short answers. (Analogy: A silly and defenceless target) I rejoice because slaying becomes so easy! The technique to use is one big stroke across the script, and a single circular motion somewhere on the script. Brainless technique! =) But I sigh, because then I wonder why they even come to the war. Sacrifice their time, and waste my effort and time with simple slaying.

I think I'm masochistic. I rejoice when I see a lengthy script. But it depends... they can be deceptive! (Analogy: A confident, difficult and intelligent opponent versus an all-talk-no-action opponent) In any case, I need to be vigilant and pour in more effort when slaying these scripts! But at least, you know, having a duel with a somewhat worthy opponent is more worthwhile than wasting my time on defenceless targets!

But I have to admit that it does drain me. Especially now when I'm dealing with migration and 'brain drain'! Heh. There'll be another war declared on Thursday! And this one will be a much larger-scale than the present war! Thankfully there is at least one warrior to assist me. But I will have to do most of the slaying. The 'top' really think I'm super-warrior leh! Give me my trophy!! Heh, no, it doesn't work that way! You can drown for all they care... but you have to continue slaying. The trophy is therefore created by myself, for my own amusement... (Yes, those of you who know me know that I can amuse myself quite well. Heh.) I even named it! It's called 'sense of accomplishment'!

I need nei4 gong1 (internal energy) to pick myself up and persevere on in the war! The race for the 'trophy' - sense of accomplishment, after slaying a whole 'state' (stack), be it only one pathetic question(!) when there are three, is sometimes sufficient to keep me on a 'high'! =)

However, having said that, peace is still the best. No war! No need lah...
Let me keep my sword, keep my shield, recuperate and live a peaceful life.
But of course, that is all a dream.
Slaying is reality!

A "CAL" for a day

2007-07-02T12:24:00.000+08:00

"CAL" stands for "Chao Ah-Lian"

Man... I never expected myself to degenerate to that point! "CALs" are a bane and I confess that they get on my nerves! And to think that I resembled them for a day erks me!

So what happened? I got bored and wanted to do something 'fun' and outrageous for the day. So I headed to the friendly hairdresser's. I wanted to colour my hair... was thinking of red, brown or seomthing along that line. But she suggested that those colours were not suitable for me, since I was still young. She suggested yellowish, etc. Hmm... didn't really have a colour in mind... and since she's the hairdreser... I left my fate in her hands.

Man... it was an itchy and somewhat painful experience. Itchy becausethe tip of my ears were itching from the dye. (Heh. It conjures up an image of a dwarf with itchy ears!) And because my hair is not used to the colour, washing it was ouch-ouch-ouch!
Think the lighting at the hairdresser's is designed so that they make your hair colour look good. So anyway, it looked rather nice. Something different, and I was torn between it looking special and 'cool' (in the sporty sense, cos it looked like I had been out in the sun for an extended period of time), versus it looking too bright and ah-lian-ish.

I told her my worries... but she said I looked good, and she really believed it. And she happily told me that she could easily cover it up for me, but she was not gonna do it! Hahaha!

I returned home, and worried about it. Why?
Because I'm a teacher! How am I gonna lecture my kids for not keeping their hair natural, when I have a golden flock? And I have to worry about those teachers out there who are dying to stab me in the back. I wonder why they are so free. And they do not bother to come straight to you... they go straight to your bosses. And apparently any 'stoopid' thing you do will affect you, regardless of how harmless or insignificant it may be. Too free... too free... they should just go become reporters with "Wan3 Bao4" or something.

So anyway, I decided that ah-lian look was not for me. I returned the very next day for the friendly hairdresser to "cover" me up. She did it willingly... this time with a dark burgundy colour which she just combed through. I was half-hoping she would not comb so thoroughly, as I did want streaks of brighness around, to reveal my rebellious nature. But I didn't say anything. So now I have a slightly brownish tint to my hair. Quite natural-looking, but as I say, not rebellious enough. Heh. I guess I'm only HALF-rebellious. Still need to conform since I'm moulding the nation!

Oh, by the way, "cover-up" was free. Heh. Friendly hairdresser what!

Wish I had taken a photo just for memory sake. But I was too confused. Heh.

"CAL" is not for me.
"LAL" is for my mummy. "Lao Ah-Lian"! Heh. She's outrageous! Her hair is bright ORANGE and SPIKEY!

Exciting job I have

2007-06-27T13:26:00.000+08:00

Being back in school conjurs up a myriad of feelings. On one hand, it's really exciting to see all the familiar faces, to feel loved and busk in the atmosphere. But on the other hand, you receive all the unnecessary workload, shifting, and being thrown around like a ball. And of course, the impending preparation for revision and catching up of lectures in the new term after the exams are over. Oh, and of course not to forget the mountain range of exam scripts from the different cohorts. (You get a mountain range when you place the stacks side-by-side.)

To quote long pinpy fren, I so concur with her when she says that "the mountain of work just keeps growing it threatens to dwarf my (our) existence." (Long pinpy fren, 2007)

But you know what, I thank God that I can still find some desire in me to get things done... and some excitement in preparing the students for the last laps. Although there are lots of changes, especially in Civics classes... I welcome the change. I think I will learn alot this next half of the year. Nevertheless, there will be serious heartaches (on my part at least!) to let go of my babies to some new teacher... after I slogged so hard with them, and grew to love them. I should learn to not be so attached. (HOW TO?!!) I'm still attached to the bunch who went for the fieldtrip with me!

Well, we have to expect drastic changes now and then huh? Nothing is ever stagnant here. In fact, nothing is ever confirmed here! But it's a good thing right? At least one can say that you'll never be bored in my job. Everyday is different. Every semester is different. But if you are one whose entire world collapses due to some unforseen change, then this ain't the job for the weak-hearted and the structured! Heh.

Let's see what else comes my way. (If only the mountain range will clear off my path...)

Farting

2007-06-26T10:22:00.000+08:00

This was what I heard on "Tickle your muttons" on Class 95.o FM this morning.

A lady went to the Doc's.

Lady: Doc, I have a gas problem. I fart very often. But it is silent, and is odourless. In fact, for the past 20 mins that I was waiting for you, I farted continously! But nobody knew because it was silent and had no smell at all!

Doc: Ok, take these pills and come back one week later.

One week later....

Lady: Doc! I don't know what pills you prescribed me! My farts are still silent, but now they are so smelly!!

Doc: Good! Now that your sinus has been cleared, let's work on your hearing.

A tribute: "Never assume anything!"

2007-06-20T23:13:00.001+08:00

Yep, "Never assume anything!" Those were the first words he told me when I first stepped in.

My Geog colleague was posted out of school. It took us all by surprise. No warning system in place. Not that he knew either. How can one not even be informed or kept posted... especially when it's such a major issue? The worse thing is, it's the middle of the year! Just when we are starting revision for the Year 2s, how can a teacher be posted out?

The main reason is because we were declared excess. How can we possibly be in excess if I'm straddling both levels and both H1s and H2s? And piled with a civics class and project work?? But I guess, other schools have to be worse off then. But doesn't common sense tell you that Humanities teachers are high in demand? So if there is any school which has the 'intelligence' to declare excess, the BOSS will definitely transfer people out? Oh... too bad the head is too engrossed in his main business to give a heck about the co-curricular subjects. Any layman can tell you that Geography has TWO components - physical and human - and they CANNOT POSSIBLY be taught together in the same lecture or tutorial!! Where's the BRAIN?!!

*Gasps and covers mouth like a bimbo* "Oh, did it exist before?"

Office politics sucks.

Know what sucks? I should be the one to leave. Because I'm the youngest one in the department, and that's usually the practice. But this was an exception! He saw me that day and said, "Come here" in a tone that was never used before. He told us that he was leaving, and I was totally shocked. Then he dropped those words, "They prefer you over me."
Man... my heart sunk. Why do this?!! I'm guessing that my National Weather Study Project which came in 3rd, and the Geog fieldtrip were the deciding factors for me. But whether staying or not is a good thing is debatable.

My poor colleague has been bullied here, by various individuals, and it's good that he is leaving for greener pastures. Thank God for watching over him. He was just in the midst of regaining his confidence and this bomb had to be dropped on him. Thank God for posting him to where he might feel comfortable, where the culture is probably more suitable, where he knows people. I pray that he will have a better time there.

As for my side, I will just have to adapt fast. I think I will feel lost without him around, because he is the BRAIN. Who else can I turn to?? Although he's full of idiosyncracies, he's a pretty nice fella. I turn to him for advice with respect to academic stuff, and I must say his research skills and notes are tip-top. (Well, better than mine!) The rapport I built with him has been good too! I whine to him whenever possible. Haha! The school's just gonna lose a talent, a talent which nobody recognises except those who work closely with him and take the effort to get to know him. Well, I pray that the colleagues in the new school will be wiser, and provide him the encouragement he needs.

Apparently I am to take on his workload, his civics class and all the Yr2 classes that were previously under him. The prospect of taking his civics class is not exactly smooth-sailing, as they are the worst performing Arts class. And to have all the J2 classes (H1s and H2s) under my wing is quite daunting for a new teacher.

The worst thing? They are taking away my J1 civics class, after I built up such terrific rapport, set the tone right and got them working, etc. It sucks.
The best thing? No more project work! Yes!

But whatever they claim or 'promise' cannot be taken for real. Last year they promised me no civics class and all... I got EVERYTHING. So we'll see. Take it as it comes. If God knows I can do it, He will give it to me and guide me along. I just wanna do everything to the best of my ability, and whine a bit here and there. Haha!

Sabah 6th Day - 5/6/07

2007-06-11T01:41:00.000+08:00

So, today's the last day of our fieldtrip. Programme's pretty relaxed. Watch orang utans, visit market, Sandakan city tour... home. No more Sandakan Memorial Park, where the Death March which included Singaporeans occurred. Did you know that there's even a"Singapore Road" in Sandakan??

That's us girls at the shelter outside our rooms, awaiting the boys who were late for breakfast... Nice resort lah...

That's the serenity that we enjoyed, as we walked along the bridge from our rooms to the restaurant. At night, the entire sky was filled with stars. In the day, you can just enjoy the peace and the beauty of the place.

Since we were at Sepilok Jungle Resort, obviously we had to visit Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Reserve!

That's us taking a mass tourist photo, just like all the others. Heh.

And it was quite an eye-opener. Do you know that lots of foreigners (especially ang-mos) volunteer there... some for many years? They take care of abandoned baby orang utans and nurse them and teach them till they are old enough to return to the jungle. Well, the positive side is that they are being taken care of.... negative side is that many of them do not really know how to survive properly in the wild, or take care of their babies as they were taken care of by humans.

And many a times, the dominant orang utan gets released into the wild first, as they need him to procreate. =)

That's a little orang utan demonstrating his acrobatic stunts. Apparently they love hanging like that...

This is the dominant male orang utan showing off his back view. You know, like how those body builders show off their bodies... front, side and back view? My student found him so sexy we claimed him as her boyfriend.... haha! To find out that male orang utans actually have multiple partners! I think she should just stick to the Probiscus ah-pei of a monkey. Heh.

This is the common MacRitchie monkey. He's grooming himself, combing his leg hair. Haha! I took a video of this vain bugger. Quite amusing. Look at how delicate he is!

And that's him posing, with his stylo-mylo hairstyle... like the US Marines! =) But sitting in a gu-niang fashion!

A revamped central market in Sandakan, the second largest town in Sabah, after Kota Kinabalu. It used to be the historical capital during colonial times, so colonial past is rather evident here. Anyway, the market looks clean and all... not much culture to talk about? Not as exciting as one would expect markets to be! Heh.

Lots of salted fish (giam3 hee3) ... many varieties...

Look at the heaps of dried shrimp (hei3 bi4) and dried anchovies (gang1 hee3)!

Sting ray. Hmm... and the cut-up version at the back. Wondering why the eye isn't there? Because the fishmonger (hmmm, I remember studying 'fishmonger' in primary school!) put his finger into the eye socket and lifted the sting ray to reposition it for my photo.
Anyway, BBQ stingray, anyone?

Look at how fresh they fishes are! So fresh that their fins are still pointed up! Oh man.... steamed fish!! Yumyum!!!

I love wet markets. I think that's where you see the local culture of the place. What they sell, what they eat, etc. I remember being in Sabah when I was little (I'm still little), and visiting a wet market. I entered the market which was all dirty, smelly and wet. There were women cleaning huge shells, digging whatever was in it, and discarding the shells. I was so intrigued I asked them to give me a shell for fun. They were shocked... but they gave me 2 anyway! Heh. And I also remember fondly playing with the little chicks and cupping their warm bodies in my palms, hoping I could bring one or two home. But of course not... Heh.

It's all so different now. No culling of chickens or whatsoever. And all hopes of showing the kids this version of the local wet market were dashed... replaced by the sanitized version of a market. Oh well.

Anyway, we made out way to the airport. We were to arrive at the airport at 230 for check-in, but we mistook the time, and thought we were flying off at 230! So we had lots of time to waste at the airport. So I introduced a game called "Spoons" to the kids, and we played it for a really long time. Quite entertaining, since the airport was bare. Heh.

So that's the end of the 6-day fieldtrip.

I'm so glad it was successful. Especially after months of planning and multiple obstacles in the way... we broke record. It's the 1st time in 4-6 years since the Geography fieldtrip managed to take off! So yes, I'm really quite elated. And the best thing is, we all had a fantastic time and experience! =)

Sabah 5th Day - 4/6/07

2007-06-11T00:51:00.000+08:00

And it's "Plant A Tree" Day! This was to help the reforestation efforts of the Kundasang people. You could choose to plant either a durian or rambutan tree, as those were the only shrubs available that day. I chose a durian tree. And all of us had trees to plant, and we could paint our names on boards to insert into the ground! So cool!

That's my board. =)

And that's ALL of us with ALL our boards... and one for the Saints too.

That's me and my little durian tree, which I pray will gorw grow grow! As I was standing there panting it and stamping the board into the ground, I must have gotten bitten / eaten / sucked alive by the horrendous mosquitoes and bloodsucking insects there! Never had they swarmed upon me in such a short span of time! Like I was their superstar! A buffet spread!

And after much negotiation and collaboration and refusing to be bullied, we managed to go for the Oxbow Lake tour - supposedly the best in Kalimantan too! Why so much trouble? Because the guide realised that we were Geographers and interested in rivers, so he confessed that it would be a good opportunity to visit it. Moreover, it could fit into our schedule! So he called the agent, but they requested that we pay RM10 each to the resort for the transport into the city later. This didn't make sense at all, because this transport was originally included in the itinerary! Not that my kids couldn't afford the RM10. But if we were to pay for anything, the guide and the local guide should get the credit! Not the resort, or anything that was already included in the itinerary! So I argued, and called the Singapore agent and it bounced to and fro, until I won the battle. So we didn't have to pay for anything, but got to go for the tour too. But we did tip the guide generously.

So this was enroute the Oxbow Lake.

And the all-cool local guide! He resembles the Canoeing coach! All full of fun, bubbly, always smiling, energetic, fit and filled with local knowledge. I like. Heh. My kind of "gorilla"... =) His name is Alloy. Nice hor? Haha!

Of course we had to trek for 30min or so to the Oxbow Lake... we were one with nature! And we were kinda apprehensive because there were lots of leeches! So we made our way as fast as possible. We came upon lots of interesting lifeforms... and even discovered that butterflies are attracted to wild boars' pee! And my, did we step into lots of wild boar pee and what-have-you! We even traced mini elephant footprints! =)

An example of a student's shoe being stucked in well, we-dun-wanna-know-what. But it did make us laugh out loud! =)

Know the pill bug or sog bug? When it is threatened, it curls into a ball. Can play gor3 li4 (marble) with it! Heh. I actually threw it into my pocket, wanting to bring it home. But after a while, I decided that if it got comfortable and starting uncurling itself and crawling in my pants, I would so totally freak out. So I took it out. Heh.

And I got my student to feed me! Haha! Look at the disgusted look on my student's face at the back! *grin*

Can you see the nicely camouflaged frog / toad on the tree?? My gosh! Spend quite a hard time trying to figure it out! But I'm glad I got it on camera! Stare hard... search for its eyes! It might help! =)

Lantern Insect. Cool right? I would have never spotted it due to its camouflage! But it's such an interesting shape! Resembles a dinosaur!!

Another cool insect which I spotted, but can't identify. =)

These are the mating tractor-pillars. Hmm... looks like 3 of them together hor? Well well well... Is your mind wandering?? Maybe they are just keeping warm lah. Or playing stack-me-up. =)

See the leech at his finger? We just ultimately grossed out by the leeches there lah. There were like families of them lah! And they all landed on one of my student, as she brushed against this plant which was filled with them. We got so used to them that when we saw a leech, we would just pull them off and fling them away while jumping up and down going "EWW"! Haha!

And a memory of us in the forest, posing in front of a gigantic tree.

And the peaceful Oxbow lake, flagged by the tall tropical trees. Reminded me of Camp Little Notch in the USA... sigh.

The oxbow lake. Serene right? But this is not an aerial view lah... so can't really see the oxbow shape of it.

This was the unstable platform at the oxbow lake. If you didn't hold on to it, it might just float away, as it was held by flimsy ropes. And if everyone was to stand on one corner of the platform, it would sink! Haha! How often do you get such an experience?? Not without your parents screaming and freaking out! Haha!

See the fishies in the bottle? We caught it ourselves you know? Using our bare hands... by creating disturbances in the water. Cute right? We almost brought them home.

Playing with the mud bombs... which we used to attack each other and the shelter in which the rest of the kiddos refused to get wet and dirty. Heh. Whale of a time!

Posing with mud all over our faces and hands.

Us posing in the oxbow lake, with specially designed hair and mask on our faces. Though I have to say that it was rather smelly. Like the Kallang River. Haha! But then again, how often do you get to play in the mud of an oxbow lake with your friends / students?

Yep, and then we made our way back to Bilit Adventure Hut, where we bade farewell to everyone, especially dear Alloy... =)
Now enroute to Gomantong Caves.

That's us on the bridge, on the way to visit Gomantong Caves, the world's smelliest and dirtiest cave. And you wonder why we even go there right? Well, for the experience. For your information, we saw a whole hill of bird's shit! Hahaha! And hoards and hoards of bats and cockroaches!!! Super gross! After trekking abit and taking some photos and patting bats, we made our way out.

That's us outside Gomantong Caves. Observe the left hand side of the cave... do you see a witch? With a pointed nose??

That's me in my poncho. I am the duckie! We wore a poncho to avoid the raining birds' shit and the xiao3 qiang2 (cockroaches).

And a dead swallow. Sigh. I immediately thought of dear Pengy, whom I haven't met or talked to in ages.

And this very cool insect... with a thousand legs. This was found in the cave! What the heck is it doing in the cave??

After climbing up this rather steep slope in the cave, filled with loose gravel and 'stuff' and stepping on 'noboy-knows-what-and-nobody-wants-to-know-what', we had to take this photo for memory's sake!

This is the tool they use to obtain the birds' nest. The nest which the poor swallows painstakingly built with their saliva. But these birdnest picking jobs are highly risky. Though people still engage in it cos they briong huge, fat profits!

That's me seated at the back of the bus, just for fun. =) Reminds me of my Lake Toba Fieldxtrip in Sec 3 when I sat at the back of the bus (literally where the window was) with Julie and Weisian. The 3 rebels. Heh.

That's the 16-seater bus we got. Pretty cosy.

And we ended that night at Sepilok Jungle Resort. No no, no more jungle... today it's a HOTEL. With cable vision, air con, big, nice cosy bed, hot shower and all. Even though a xiaoqiang peeped its feelers through the hole in the basin and gave us all a shock, and a tingle down the back. So we stuffed a ball of tissue into the hole to prevent its entry. This was akin to how we stuffed a piece of plastic bag into the hole in the Adventure Lodge the night before to prevent the mouse from entering the room! Apparently the mouse was quite cute... well, some of them didn't think so though! Haha!

We were served dinner at this really huge heavy, wooden table... similar to those warlords having a feast in the castle. I was searching around for a good place to do my final debrief for the trip, but nobody would offer their room... so I negotiated with the restaurant aunty to let us use the table till late, and she even offered to leave the lights on for us! Yay!!

So debrief was gonna be a really long one... to sum up the entire trip.
For academic stuff, we talked about the oxbow lake, hotspring and volcanoes, plate tectonics, comparison between Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan through the maps, and accounting for the layout....

For more fun stuff, I had them share on what they have learnt and whether their expectations of the trip were met. Then I got all of them to write their big, fat name on their journals, to be passed around to every individual... and everyone had to write something about their person. This was also to boost their ego / morale, bond more closely with each other, and say things which they will probably not say to each other in normal situations. Hmm.. declaration of love, maybe? Haha!

But it was good. Quite fun too. And I could see that they really enjoyed reading the comments! Haha! Err... so did I! Hahaha! A little cheap thrill. And I was glad that they were all glad that they came for this trip and enjoyed themselves thoroughly... even though some of them came because they were scolded by me for being irresponsible in wanting to pull out the last minute. They said that it was comfortable being with me because I did not enforce the teacher-student boundary too strictly. That's me, I hope it's not a bad thing. One said I was super enthusiastic and it's hard to not be influenced by it... always wanting to try new stuff... I guess that's what travelling is all about too, right?

All in all, it was a great way to end the day, and the last debrief. We ended by watching cable tv in bed... an exciting suspense thriller... till we dozed off and realised that no one knew the ending! Haha!

Sabah Day 4 - 3/6/07

2007-06-11T00:04:00.000+08:00

Early morning and you wake up... and you see God's artistic creations in the sky and you just have to smile. =) We are still at Kundasang Sabah Tea Plantation, so lots of nature to be enjoyed.
The Kota Kinabalu mountain range at the back

As the sun starts to rise

We of course have to pose at such a beautiful sight / site!

And the sun rises, with part of it partially hidden, like an eclipse.

And this is the west. Where you see one of the peaks of Kota Kinabalu, possibly "Donkey's Ears". Did you know that there are 9 peaks at Kota Kinabalu? =) And on this side, there hung the moon! So you turn and you see the sun. You turn again and you see the moon! Haha!

Experimenting with the clinometer. This can tell you the angle of the slope just by looking through it and aiming it at your desired slope. But of course, this is inaccurate, as we needed poles. I just improvised and asked them to use each other. Haha!

A nice view of the longhouse. I just love its structure!

Our rooms of 3 beds each are on the left. Each bed just consists of 1 mattress and a mosquito net. And the mattresses are placed side by side. But the room is pretty cosy. There was even a mirror and a small basin! In which I sliced the mangoes for the girls...

On the right was where we sat for debrief.

Sabah Tea Factory tour. Where we learnt about the different machines and processing methods. Yep, there are only 'ang mo' tea, 'ABNN' tea and 'Cheena' tea. Sabah tea is a pa4 zeng4 tea (mixture of different types). It's organic as well, as the fertilizer used is from the tea plant itself. And tea plants can grow into trees 10m tall!

Well, we said byebye to Kundasang Area, and headed for East Sabah. It was a 5-hour bus journey, in which we all knocked out. Heh.

At the shelter of Kinabatangan River. Waiting for the boat to transport us over to the Adventure Lodge for the night. Exciting right??

Say "hi" to Chin Chin, the resident "Evil". It would just trot over to you and lie on your lap and let you stroke it to sleep.

We headed for a cruise along the Kinabatangan River to watch out for mammals and the like. And we saw chimpanzees, snakes, normal MacRitchie monkeys (which raised its eyebrows at a student and another which almost peed on another girl!), Probiscus monkeys, etc. The boats were cool, and the breeze was relaxing. Just sitting on a boat was a good and relaxing after a long bus ride on rocky road!

Us on the cruise in the long boat along the Kinabatangan River.

A slither. Think it's a python. It's said that you will die of its poison in 10 mins if not treated.

Enjoying the motorboat and its speed!

That's the Probsicus Monkey. His big, long nose is characteristic of his species, along with his beer belly! Another ah-peh at the kopitiam! Do you know that he's the most loyal male out of the monkey kingdom? I think it's cos he's so fat and ugly he can't attract anyone else. So he has to be loyal. Heh.

He has to guard his family well. If not, some bachelor group will come along and fight him. If he loses, he will have to abandon his family. And his little kiddos will be abandoned by the new group and left to fend for themselves.

A camouflaged tree snake.

The Kinabatangan river at dusk.

After dinner (in which we feasted on GIGANTIC prawns which resembled crayfish), we got ready for the nightwalk in the jungle.

All of us dressed for the nightwalk. Covered all the way. Dressed like this to prevent leeches and other funny insects.

A kingfisher was the first we spotted. Looks like a fake wooden bird which the guides just placed in the forest to interest us huh? Heh.

A daddy-long-eight-legs, with a white body.

And this is a tree frog. Flat blob it is!

And a beautiful spider... We saw so many that in the end, we lost interest in it. No more novelty effect. Haha! But there was once when we spotted 2 spiders spinning a web together. I called it the "Web of love". Heh.

Pill bug, I think. It's hard, by the way. So not so eerie to touch. Heh.

Cicadas. The very noisy insect which sheds its outer skin. What you see here are 3 cicadas's outer skin. What is interesting is that, they all look so real! Especially the eyes! I thought this was a another prized possession! (This photo, I mean...)

Another posing tree frog. This one looks like the back view of an ah-peh sitting at the kopitiam huh?

And this is his side-view. I kinda like this photo. Heh.

The common spider web.

A spikey centipede. It's red where the spikes are. Quite scary... didn't dare to go near it lest it kissed me!

A bloated tree frog. So pui2 (fatty bombom) it seems like it will explode if I poke it! Not that I wanna poke it! Eww!

Another rare photo! A bat which was hanging in the middle of nowhere! A close-up of it shows that its face resembles either a pig or a bear!

Have you ever seen a real scorpion before? This cheeky fella was stuck to one of my kid's shoe! Lucky the guide instructed us to check our clothings and shoes and bodies for insects before entering the rooms!

Cool scorpion right? We were all so intrigued!

That night, we talked about meanders as we were all excited over the broad meanders which winded through the land as we descended from the mountains. Went into the technicalities of braided streams and meanders as well.

And because I believe that fieldtrips should not only widen / deepen our Geographical knowledge, but also allow us to grow in character, I had students reflect and share with everyone how they have grown in the past days. And it was not bad... several of the girls had now grown braver in the sense that they exposure to nature and inevitable insects had made them less afraid of flying insects and the sort. The rest expressed that the close-up with nature during the cruise and the nightwalk was a good experience.

I concur.

Sabah Day 3 -2/6/07

2007-06-10T23:01:00.000+08:00

I pulled all of them out of bed at 0630hrs so that we could cover as many activities as possible. The first one of which was to enjoy the Poring hotspring. This is why it's called Poring Hotspring.

It means "Big Bamboo".

This was the beautiful rapids which we had to cross to reach the hotspring. There was this very cool suspension bridge which several of us alway jumped on, to make the others squeal. Haha!

I had already warned them not to have such high expectations, for it might just turn out to be a tap! And guess what? There were several taps! And not the beautiful kind you would imagine in Japan or Taiwan... Heh.

So these were the baby tubs in which you would sit in, fill it with hot spring water and cold water, and soak yourself in the smelly sulphuric water. Heh. The boys took one tub, I took a tub with 3 other girls, and 3 girls took another one to soak their feet (haha!). Was quite fun because I took scandalous photos of the guys (which I will not post here unless they are naughty in class) and we had a water hose fight and a splashing good time with the girls in the tub behind us. Funniest thing was that they enlisted the help of 2 other little boys! So we were attacking little boys too! Hahaha!

And a funny sign at the hotspring. No cooking of eggs! =) Or else there would be lots of hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, and not sunny-side ups!

Guess what was for breakfast? We just sat at the table and they served us bread and jam. Because our expectations were already rock bottom, we assumed that was all. But no.... they served us (much later, after lots of bread was being consumed) sunny-side-ups, sausage, baked beans and tea/coffee. And of course, I walloped a whole lot of egg yolks cos kids don't sem to like yolks!

I shooed them to gobble up their breakfast and return to their bunks to check out. So this was our bunk of 6 beds.

This was the hall, where we had our debrief the previous night. Quite a cozy place, I must say.

Next activity, treetop canopy walk! We had to trek a whole long flight of stairs up to the canopy, of course. One of my kids complained, saying that she wanted a cablecar! Haha! Sigh. Anyway, we did make it up. And I think the most interesting thing was the suspension bridge! It's different from the one we jump on because we know it's still stable. This one was narrow and you could only put one foot in front of the other... and the ropes which you hold on at the sides are rather far apart, and slightly below shoulder-level. But at least it was netted. So no, you didn;t have to jump in order to make it shake. Everyone was focused on maintaining their balance rather than enjoying the canopy! Haha!

This is the suspension bridge at the canopy. And you know what? It doesn't just end here! There is another longer one which brings you to the centre! But unfortunately, they were doing some maintenance that day, and we could only try 2 suspension bridges and u-turn. Otherwise, we would have crossed maybe 4 suspension bridges and completed the whole canopy?

They required us to pay an astronomical sum of money for cameras. I refused, and smuggled mine in and even took a group shot. Heh.

Then came the slight adventure. One of my girls had the cramps, and was unable to make her way across the canopy, nor down the trek. Nothing much I could do other than comfort her and encourage her close friends to sayang her. As she was walking down the steps, she suddenly stopped in her track and exclaimed that she couldn't move. We cajoled her, but she refused, saying that she had sprained her ankle. What to do? I was almost tempted to just pop her onto my back and scamper down. But the guide offered. And the guide is this big teddy bear. So ok. Heh. He had a beard too, which I think my girl could have held on to, to maintain her stability on his comfytable back. Hee.

That was not all. When we reached the base, she was still in pain. So I rubbed some cream on her ankle and bandaged it up for her. My students claimed that it was another medical operation. I had conducted one in the van when I tried to pull a splinter out from someone's thumb. That failed. Haha! Due to the jerking of the van...

But the most hilarious thing was that the guide went to get a bright orange stretcher, and they whisked my girl away! Everyone was staring at her! So we walked some distance away from her to avoid any association. Hahaha! Anyway, they whisked her across the suspension brdge as well! With her lifted high up in the air! Where she could so easily topple into the rapids! But of course, she was safe and sound lah And she didn't complain anymore. Hmmm...

But due to this incident, we were unable to visit the waterfalls 15 min away, to everyone's disappointment. It was impossible to just leave my girl alone in the van.

Anyway, we took a rather long ride to Sabah Tea Plantation. And on the van, we took photos of our fruits. Informal economy in a van. =)

Whole load of fruits to be sold! And the people in the van...

This was the longhouse which we were to stay in that night. Looks cool huh? Amongst the tea plantation.. Cooling bamboo, authentic accomodation. I loved it!

This was taken just outside the toilet, which was amazingly clean!

3 monkeys in the longhouse just outside our rooms.

And playtime! In which we almost broke the poor wooden see-saw plank by balancing so many of us on it!

Rolling hills of tea plantations, with Mount Kinabalu behind.

Posing wiith the acres and acres of tea plantation just behind us.

Another cool form of transportation. A safari lorry, they call it. But obviously none of us wanted to sit down! We all stood up to enjoy the breeze and played "Duck" with the tree branches... (the boys and myself being the first 3 to warn the others of tree branches, as we were standing in front), while the kids sang "A whole new world" at the top of their voices. Pretty fun!

I had one silly, blur kid who would stand sideways and not listen to the warning, so "BAM" the tree branch would go, and she would be dazed. And before she knows it, the next branch would come! Haha! So she was the joke of the day! =)

View of the path in front of us, on the safari lorry

Damaged phone. Observe the bend in the battery! One of them dropped her phone off the safari lorry, and the lorry ran over it! Hahaha!

But you know what the amazing thing is?? Although the inerts seem crushed, it could still vibrate and answer calls!!! =)

The next part of the day was to be the most exciting part... River study! We travelled a whole 30 mins on the safari lorry winding along the tea plantations to our destination. When we hopped off the lorry, the lorry got stuck in the mud! So we joined forces and pushed the lorry with all our might. And we succeeded! More fun there! And my girls would claim... "We're man!" =)

I led the trek this time round, although I didn't know the place! I just followed the route, and directions from the guide at the back. We literally climbed up and down for 15 - 20 mins or so before reaching the river.

The trek to the river...

I was filled with excitement and shock. Excitement because I absolutely loved the river, and the prospect of going into it. Shock because the current was quite strong, and I was worried over the safety of my kids and the feasibility of the river study. There were rapids before and after the 100m stretch of somewhat calm water in which we were to study. But the guide claimed that it was safe to swim. And he's the guide right?

So without further ado, I divided my kids up into 2 groups, and we went about measuring the width of the river, the cross-sectional area, the velocity, etc.

I ventured over to the other side of the river with my 2 "ma" girls and the 2 boys. Hmm... one girl and myself almost got washed away to the rapids as there were lots of turbulence around the rocky area on the opposite side. What a frightening experience! Haha! But I stabilized 1 boy and 1 girl on a rock, before starting the measuring. There was once when the metre rule was too short to measure the height of the river at the opposite side, so I just made do with 1m. I mean, how accurate can one be in that turbulent waters??

Measuring of the velocity was a whole lot of fun. Why? Because I used a hardened mangosteen as a float! And I instructed my kids to guard it with their lives, by forming a line to catch the mangosteen before it enters the rapids! It was hilarious when everyone got so uptight over the mangosteen! Hahaha!

In the end, we used human floats, as the guide provided a safety tyre. So the kids had lots of fun floating down the river, while we timed the velocity. Afterward, we just spent the time searching for pretty pebbles (heart-shaped ones) and skipping stones. Heh. There was this girl who was always so engrossed in searching for her heart-shaped pebbles that it seemed like she was planting wet rice in the river, and oblivious to all other activities around her! Hahaha!

So this was the meander at the bend of the river.

Measuring the velocity of the river, and forming a line to catch my mangosteen.

Group photo in the river

And splashing the kids after the photo! =)

And when we returned from the river, there was a whole plain in front of us. No forest. And an Obstacle course! I must say these boys are rather strong! One of them made it up without using his legs at all! Sheer body strength!

And of course, I can't miss out on the fun! =)
That night, the guide even showed us illuminous mushrooms! And the stars just filled the sky! What a beautiful beautiful night! And some of my kids and myself tried to scare the rest by walking in front in the total darkness and screaming, as if encounteringng some huge insect. Haha! But our plan fell through, as the timing was wrong! So we got laughed at instead! =)

Well, there was lots to debrief and teach that night! We sat in the longhouse (perfect place... with the breeze and all) and talked about fieldwork of the river, did calculations, described the different flows and their conditions, explained river features, etc. And the highlight of the day was for them to break into 4 groups to put up a skit of the most memorable time of the day. It turned our to be a great time of fun and laughter! Heh. Afterward, we just stayed up in our room and talked, before venturing out to talk to the others till we all dozed off.

Perfect day. *blissful*

Sabah Day 2 - 1/6/07

2007-06-10T14:21:00.000+08:00

We had toast and papaya for breakfast... not fanciful American breakfast. Heh. And to pay tribute to the homely and cosy Step Inn Lodge, here is my bed, and this is the hall, with cable vision - where we watched "Spongebob Squarepants" and "Tom and Jerry"! =)

We headed off to Kampung Air (Water Village) - temporary housing on the water, to do a study. They are known as "Sea Bajau" people who migrated from Philippines. The living ocnditions are not as 'terok' as you would imagine. They had electricity and clean water... Their lives seem carefree and all... they even had Play Station! Haha! And they could jump into the water for a swim anytime!

Next, we headed to the beach. For fun. Too bad we aren't studying "Coast" anymore... or we could study the wave velocity and all. Anyway, we did treasure the opportunity to have some fun.

Who says teachers can't play?!

Cool huh? I love this kinda photo! =)

After this, we did a urban study of the city of Kota Kinabalu. I made them compare between the different retail sectors - of the high-class and the middle-class. Since the Kota Kinabalu is so absolutely tiny, we had driven around it several times already! So we ended up eating ice-cream and shopping after a short comparison. Haha!

Remember how I brain-washed the students into expecting low standards for food and accomodation? Well, it was a good idea... cos lunch was totally out of our imagination! From last night's pathetic burger and mineral water.... we had zi2 char4 style - fried calamari, assam fish head, lamb chop, chicken, kang kong, you tiao tofu, crab and corn soup, lots of rice and a big plate of fruits! 2 sets of this for 2 round tables of 7 and 6 pax each! And you know what? My table full of 6 girls (including myself) walloped EVERYTHING! Including the neighbouring table's fruits! Unbelievable huh?

After lunch, we headed for Kota Kinabalu National Park. Along the way, we chanced upon this postmodernist structure, so we got off to take photos. Heh.

It rained! And so the temperature dipped as we travelled up to highland. But that also meant that we didn't get a good view of Mount Kinabalu along the way as it was blocked by the huge clouds.

See the mist? We could even blow and got "smoke" coming out from our mouths! Haha! Cheap thrill. Imagine all of us doing that!

I made the tour guide bring us to farms / gardens, etc. And so we had the chance to see the flowers and strawberries. Now to show off my photographic skills. Haha! No lah... just that the flowers were really pretty... so much so that it was irresistable to capture their photo!

But first... the mei3 ren2 hua1 (pretty human flowers!) Hee.

Sea Cucumber!!

Have you ever seen such a gigantic hibiscus?!!

And the balloons!! Hee. I loved them!

I had planned to do some Economic Geographic study... like where in the world do they get their fertilisers.. where they sell their flowers to, etc. But to my disappointment, the flowers are grown for people to admire! And the strawberries are sold locally in Sabah. And the fertilisers are local too! Argh. But at least we had a good time amidst the flowers, and chasing ducks and chickens. Heh.

So next we headed to the fruits market. I love these kinda roadside atmosphere. Heh.

And of course, another group photo for memory sake.

Potaotes for wall paper, anyone?
Or cucumbers??

Or how about carrots? =)

More fruits? Snake fruit, avocado, oranges, mangoes, mangosteens, etc. We bought a pomelo, buah langsat, jambu (water apple), and mangoes. Heh. Fruits galore! I like!

And to end of the healthy tour of fruits and vegetables, here's the most popular goreng pisang! Hot and dripping with oil! Heh.

We ended up at Poring Hotspring that night. I shared a bunk if 6 beds with my students. And it was a long debrief that night... we talked about Social Polarisation, Informal Economy, Economic Geog, Urban Studies, etc.

Geography Fieldtrip to Sabah - 1st Day

2007-06-08T00:40:00.000+08:00

Ahaha!! I'm back! With a vengeance! Heh. Haven't had the time to upload pics or blabber for several months now...

But since I've broken a record and had the time of my life... I shall share the joy with you people who still bother to check this website of mine out!

As seen from the title of this entry, I organised a Geography fieldtrip to Sabah after much upheaval and angst, and return home in one piece after enjoying myself thoroughly. Why a record-breaking event? That's because it's been almost 5 years since the last Geography fieldtrip took off! And I made this one happen! *grin*

Definitely have to give all thanks to God, as He has been really merciful and blessed me and my students wholely. Everything that happened was due to the grace of God. For example, the number of students (specially hand-picked by God), the itinerary, the happenings, the groupings, etc. Everything went well, despite the uncertaintly and paranoia.

So, we finally set off on 31/5/07 from school. Headed to Senai Airport in Johor to board this artistically (in other words, or-biang) Air Asia flight into Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah. My gosh... it was so cramped and uncomfortable as the person seated beside me was not exactly the slimmest of people. Lucky it was a short flight!

When we arrived, we were welcomed with our packed dinner. Guess what it was? A mysterious black plastic bag! So what was in this mysterious black plastic bag?? *Drumroll* A pathetic flattened burger with a bottle of mineral water! %$#&*@!!
You mean we paid for this? And the best thing was, it was stated in the itinerary that we were to stay in "Step Inn Hotel"... you know what the deal was? It turned out to be "Step Inn Lodge", a youth hostel! With dinghy-looking flight of stairs with cockroaches, which resembled the Hong Kong apartments in town. The shock and disappointment on all our faces were impossible to conceal, (well, unless with mud!)

But the youth hostel wasn't that bad lah. The rooms were air-conditioned and clean. Beds were dormitory double-decker beds and rather comfy. The entire feeling was ratehr homely, and the toilets were clean with hot showers. More than what we expected. Heh. So it was a pleasant stay after all. And of course, we had to amuse ourselves.

These are my two room-mates who live my past. Heh.

And of course, since there was a night market, I would wanna explore it! And it turned out to be a real wet market! A Filippino one to that extent! So we indulged in yummy chicken wings and fruits, after touring the market and opening the kids' eyes to a whole new world - informal economy of the not-too-well-to-do.

And of course, back to the homely hostel where I cut the mangoes and feasted on the wings and mangoes to supplement their poor burger.

This helped to set my expectations alot lower, and I influenced the kids too. So that they would not be too disappointed if they were not fed superbly well and stayed in high-class accomodation.

Tremors

2007-03-15T16:20:00.000+08:00

There was one day when I happened to go for lunch at a nearby kopitiam with some colleagues, when I experienced a dizzyness never felt before. I thought to myself, "Cham4! This time I'm done for. Something must be seriously wrong with me!" For an instant I thought it was something shaking the table (you know how some individuals like to rock the table while unknowingly shaking their legs?), so I leant back on the chair, to find my head still spinning!

Later, some other colleagues chanced upon us at the kopitiam and asked what we were doing there. We later learnt that there was a mass evacuation and assembly of the whole school due to tremors which were triggered from an earthquake in Sumatra! Whoa! Exciting hor?

But we didn't think much of it. And I was privately relieved that it was the tremors at fault, and not my body going haywire! Heh. We proceeded on to the dreaded workshop. But when we just settled down, I felt the 'dizzyness' once again! Oh man! This time we heard the announcement on the PA system to gather at the track. Even the press was there! Whatever for? They seem like vultures!

After baking in the sun for quite some time, it was finally announced that school would end then, and of course it was accompanied by lots of cheers in the background! (Including me of course!) We ended school because the building contractor had to come scan the building and ensure that it is safe to be used. Everyone had to be evacuated. (The theory is, it is safer at home. Heh. As long as it doesn't affect the school!)

I didn't wanna squeeze with students on the bus, so I decided to walk instead. When I reached the busstop along Braddell Road, students spotted me and shouted to me from the bus! Oh man... quite paiseh, but quite happy too! Dilemma. Heh.

Anyway, I walked ALL the way to Thomson Plaza to borrow VCDs from VideoEzy. That was the main motivation to keep me walking! And I wanted to break record too lah! Heh. Not that most of you will appreciate this. Heh.

The news that night stated that there were many locations in Singapore that experienced the tremors. Just tremors and we make a hooha, have we thought about the Indonesians who were directly affected by it, in terms of lives and property?

My mummy was funny. She saw people run out of the building and she followed suit. Her boss asked her why she was running. She replied that she didn't know... and she retorted that only those people with money will run... cos they want to protect their money! Hahaha! Ridiculous. That's my mummy...

Exciting life

2007-03-11T00:28:00.000+08:00

Had another exciting experience.

We were driving to Tiong Bahru for dinner at night, and were on Tiong Bahru Road (perpendicular to Seng Poh Road), when we saw a guy sitting on a red chair in the middle of the road!!! Fortunately we were travelling on the extreme left lane on a 3-lane road. The insane guy was seated in the middle lane... and facing the traffic! He was dressed in blue, so it was difficult to see him. And he obviously wanted to die in an exciting manner! How many of us love the intoxication of facing oncoming traffic?

But luckily that isn't a road many speed on. Vehicles did manage to spot him in time and swerve into another lane to avoid being the unlucky scapegoat to cause the crazy fella's death and get blamed for it! (Actually, if *touchwood* something like this happens, will the driver be charged? Assuming that he is within the speed limit... But then again, he'll be tortured by the trauma of the accident and his conscience....) What an idiot right? Wanna die then just go swallow sleeping pills or something. If he chose to jump down some block or slash his wrist, people will still have to clear up the mess. If he gased himself to death, waste electricity and gas (non-renewable resource). Incosiderate fella.

Anyway, I called the police and informed them. Quite exciting... 1st time I've called 999 to report something. (The last time was when I was young. I called and hung up. Almost immediately, I received a call back and got a stern warning from the police officer.) Anyway, the policeman asked me to tell him my number, and I almost uttered the wrong number! (How often do you call yourself?!) Then he couldn't understand Seng Poh Rd!

I did return to the 'scene' to kaypoh. Instead of seeing the police there and kicking up a fuss, or people surrounding to gossip, I saw a car stopped in front of a scooter, with a silver umbrella spread open on the road behind the scooter. And some passers-by looking on. Nobody was hurt, but the scooter's license plate was crooked. THe crazy fella was standing nearby at a tree, with his red chair. I assume that the car had swerved to avoid hitting the crazy fella, and inevitably hit the scooter.

Since nothing significant happened, I resumed dinner. But when I checked my phone and returned the call to an unknown number... it turned out to be the police! They had called to verify the location again... at Outram! My goodness! How shocking can this get? Imagine you were running for your life, and you call the police to save you. But they call you and verify the place... and they are at a totally WRONG location! Oh my! Unimaginable!

What to do?

Exciting life... 2 police encounters in less than a week! Are you envious? Heh.

Nigh cycling

2007-03-10T23:57:00.000+08:00

ODAC planned a Night Cycling, and I was half-excited, half-paranoid. Excited cos I love cycling, and to gallivant all over the place at night on my bike is just exhilarating! But paranoid cos my fitness level is like minus several degrees, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to catch up with the youngsters... and with my fat butt, I was gonna be tortured by the skinny bike seat!

But I went anyway... I was late (refer to previous post to discover why), and I got sabo-ed to follow the first group. Sabo-ed because this first group comprised of the best-est cyclists in the club! What an honour! -snigger-

Anyway, bo-bian right? So I glupped, plucked up my courage, and acted nonchalantly as I got ready to follow them. When I started cycling, I was intoxicated! Heh. Happy I was to be on a bike again! *grin* And so all fears disappeared, as I happily cycled behind them, grinning from ear to ear with the freedom I had.

We set off from East Coast Park, down to East Coast Road... Still Road... to Ubi. Suddenly, the boy's bike in front of me went kuku, and he had to stop his bike by the side of the road, while the rest had cycled on. I stopped behind him, and instructed him to push his bike up onto the pavement to get off the road. Then we examined his bike. Goodness! It isn't the normal scenario where the chain just gets displaced. In this case, the 'thingy' which connects the chain had broke, twisted itself and got entangled in the spokes of the wheel! We were so fascinated that he whizzed out his camera and took a shot for momento! =)

I called the safety vehicle and gathered the rest of the group, and proceeded to the nearest busstop to wait. We had a rather nice time chatting! Heh. Afterward, we headed down Airport Road to Boundary Road, before reaching Serangoon Gardens to have supper at ChompChomp. Guess what? The kids locked the bikes together, and then happily went to order food. Nothing amazing about that right? But then, something happened, which freaked them out! They had misplaced the key!! What were they to do?

Kids' reactions amongst themselves...
"Call the locksmith."
"Locksmith said $100... asked us to look for other alternatives cos it's not worth it."
"I go home and cut a cutter."
"Where do you stay? Erm... quite far."
"Tell the teachers?"
"Eh don't want lah... we figure this out ourselves."
But in the end, of course they did come to the teachers for help. Damsels in distress...
They asked for the toolbox which they were supposed to pack. But those silly boys... their toolbox was really tiny! Enough to fit your palm! And obviously it didn't have anything useful! Other than a swiss army knife which they could use to saw till daylight to see results.

D suggested calling the police. He went to 7-11 to ask for the number. The attendant told him to call 999. Hahaha! But anyway, he did manage to find the police post's number, and the boys called. They agreed to come after a second try. We were jsut wondering what kind of cutter they would use... someone suggested a bush shearer. We thought it was too gigantic, and ridiculous. But to our amazement, when the policemen arrived, they produced a cutter that was about a meter tall!!! Incredible! And even then, the policeman still had to twist and turn the wire of the lock to break it afterward! (The lock is indeed secure!)

In the meanwhile, there was this hawker guy who figured what was going on. He then cheekily looked at the other hawker and said in Hokkien:

A: Eh! Mai4 sing4 liao4 lah4! Sor1 See2 hoi1 yee3! (Don't play anymore! Return him the key!)
B: -dumbfounded-

Hahaha! That was a good comic relief!

Yeah, anyway, that was an exciting experience, and it gave us a longer time to slack too, while I even got to meet up with Meowmeow! =)

We set off on our journey. This time down Ang Mo Kio, Thomson, Bishan, Bradell (long killer slope... where we took a break at a busstop and I dozed off while sitting on the kerb by the road!), Potong Pasir, Crawford, Marina, Esplanade, Kallang Park (lots of winding!!), Kallang Mac's, and back to East Coast. And all the while, we were going at breakneck speed, because they have to prove that they're the best! At some time, I grew slightly bitter because we were so much ahead of time, and I didn't understand why we needed to rush! My butt was killing me!! The worst feeling is when you took a rest, and then you had to hop onto that killer-seat once again and feel the sore! (And you had to reposition yourself in a less-sore position to ease the ache!)

Yeah, it was indeed an exciting experience. I want my own bicycle!

True or False?

2007-03-07T12:29:00.000+08:00

Had a long day in school, which ended with a Moral Education seminar, after I was caught in the heavy heavy downpour.

Kel was quite nice, and picked me up. We ended up at his place for dinner, before I got hooked to the computer game and a snooze. During my snooze, something incredible happened. (No, I didn't transform into some butterfly to suck nectar out from some pretty flower, nor transform into some mosquito to sting those incorrigible students.)

There were urgent knocks on the main door, and Kel went to check it out. There was this dubious character (DC), claiming to be his dad's old acquaintance. He stated facts such as:

DC: I'm looking for your father.
Kel: He's not in.
DC: I know your father from very long ago... Why don't you let me in so that I can wait for him? *gasp*
Kel: No...
DC: Kelvin right? Your father is YK Lim right?
Kel: (Ponders with a very disturbed look... How come he knows my name?)
Kel: My father is not YK Lim.
.
.
.
.
.

Dubious Character goes off... but returns five minutes later. This time he brings his wife, and motions his son to the door. (Don't go off imagining that the son is some little cute boy of age 5. The 'son' is tall, dark, (not handsome apparently), big size... He takes a look and shakes his head.

DC: Catholic right? Last time in Cantoment Road... some church... I am the pastor's helper ...(Hello, Catholics don't have pastors!)
DC: Your father used o work in nightclubs right?
Kel: My father was always a policeman.

Kel hurries to call his dad to verify, and to get him to return home quick.
When his dad returned, the DC came aknockin' again. But his dad confirmed that he did not know him, and chased him away, before shutting the door tight.

So how come there were some accurate details and some incorrect details?

DC got the name correct because while we were waiting for the lift, we happened to glance at the notice board and noticed a letter sitting there. Kel took a look at it, and surprisingly, it happened to be HIS! Some lazy fella must have taken it and not bother to slot it back into the letterbox.
Anyone can identify a Catholic home because of the crucifix on the door and when you peer into the house, you can tell easily too!

So what was the fella's motives? Hmmm, either he seriously got the wrong house... (but why was he so persistent, and still fumble over these 'facts'??) Or he belongs to some syndicate which is up to no good. Sigh.

We didn't dare to leave the house, for fear that his parents would fall for the trickster. And Kel was afraid that we would get kidnapped if we ventured out. Heh. In the end, we took a gigntic umbrella out with us for protection.

Solution: Kel suggests that if anyone encounters this, we should offer to take a photo of the person to verify. Capture his face. Say that we want to verify it. (And of course, it can also be used as evidence for 999. Heh.)

Urban lecture experience

2007-02-27T16:03:00.000+08:00

Guess what?

I started lecturing on my favourite topic - "Urban Geography" today! =)

My my... I had to blog about it.

So much sweat, so many hours sitting and staring at the computer (!), all the research to generate the lecture notes, the scanning and sourcing of diagrams and beautiful pictures, etc.
Well, I have to say that the process was almost torturous, I sadistically enjoyed it to some extent! Haha! Maybe it's cos I absolutely love the topic, and I feel confident in delivering a fairly good lecture.

The sense of satisfaction was worth it... and it's several-tiered! =)

When I browsed through my powerpoint slides and they were 'fattened' with considerably substantial content and nice nice pictures and effects. Hee.
When I finally printed out a final copy of my lecture notes. Thick thick leh... cos I compiled 2 to 3 lectures together. Heh. And there are cute cute bullets to add an element of fun, like how Lampy used to print for us.
When students who were late were to carry their own tables and chairs from the other class as there were insufficient furniture in the classroom. I thought it was appropriate 'punishment'! A "disaster" which turned out to be a blessing. (I was stressed over searching for an appropriate venue which could 'tahan' the whole group.)
When I gave the students a brief overview of the ideas I had for the lecture group. For example, local fieldtrips and projects. And they were "ooh-ing" and "ahh-ing" and smiling to themselves. Wow. Heh.
When I did start lecturing and felt a sense of joy when I did start explaining my lecture points, and saw that they were listening attentitvely, not dozing off or lost or 'forced' to pay attention. I was actually enjoying myself so much that I didn't want to stop lecturing! (But I did of course! Haha! Cannot spoil all the fun...)
When I distributed rough paper and had the students either draw or write what they imagined what each cities were like, as I listed the cities. such as New York, Paris, Beijing, Mumbai, etc. They didn't know where Mumbai is! Haha! They enjoyed the activity, and through their contrasting imaginations of Mumbai and New York (ie. Mumbai being polluted, crowded, densely populated, messy.... and New York with skyscrapers, people who speak English, Statue of Liberty, 911, etc.) I was able to illustrate how rapid urban growth especially in LDCs like Mumbai would be problematic.

And of course, I had to make a booboo, and pay for it! Literally.

I sent my lecture notes for printing yesterday, and tried to explain to the auntie about the change in lecture groups. Today, I ended up with a WHOLE stack of notes for the WHOLE cohort of JC2 H1 Geography students! Oh my! And she said that it was my fault. Haii... what to do? So I offered to pay lor... and you know how much it was? A whooping $36!! What a waste of my money! Slog so much still must fork out a big lump sum of money for notes which can't even be used as rough paper! Sigh... My only hope is to wait for next year's batch of students doing "Urban Geography" and recycle the notes. How dumb.

I returned to the staffroom and told HBB that I had done something stoopid. My RO overheard and commented, "What's new?" Haii... there goes whatever reputation I had...

Ok, too long. I'm going to mark. When you set too much work, you suffer. *Orh-bee-good*

Positive take on things

2007-02-25T16:31:00.000+08:00

I am blogging because I am not doing work, though I have piles of marking and preparation for lecture awaiting me. Hmm... guess I have yet to change my in-born nature of procastinating!

That was how "PinPy" came about! It stands for "Partner-in-Procastination". And long fren is my Pinpy! Though I think she has long abandoned me to dwell in my procastination while she moves on to new pastures. Heh.

Anyway, I'm just here to talk about how keeping a positive attitude is essential, and sometimes, pertinent to survival. I definitely do not claim to be positive all the time, and am postitively negative (paradox!) at times, causing me to go into depression many a times. However, I do believe that staying positive and optimistic keeps one happy/satisfied, and provides us the impetus to survive and accomplish sometimes unimaginable things.

I speak as a first person, who is bogged down with many responsibilities at work. Duties include straddling between both Human and Physical Geog at 2nd year level, straddling with 1st years, taking on ODAC and Canoeing and trying to contribute as much as possible, being in a Committee to plan a major event... oh, and don't forget the CTship and Project Work which comes along with it... and my passion in organizing Fieldtrips and inevitable Remedial classes. After almost a term, I am still surviving, because many of the duties above have not exactly taken form, such as PW, lecturing, etc.

The other day there was a unit meeting and my RO said she didn't want me to die. I told Kel the situation and he took it that they were bullying the young teacher. (Well, have I mentioned that my confirmation is this year? Heh.) I see his point of view, and sometimes things are inevitable. If I were to grouch about it and feel bullied and exploited, I am convinced that I will not be able to fulfill my basic responsibilities at all. But I am thankful that I am able to take everything as a challenge, and am hopefully confident that I can excel at some areas.

At least I find joy in the things I do... I love and treasure my teaching periods and interaction with my students, including CCA students. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I sense that I have taught them something, given them advice and they take it, or even to bring a smile to their face. I find joy in organizing fieldtrips because I myself want to play, and desire for students to fall in love with Geog on the fieldtrip (cos there's so much you can learn!)

Chien asked why I don't just hire someone to complete my marking. Well, first I lack the finances, second I don't want to give up this opportunity to guide the kids' development. Through marking, I also get to know my students better, and it's a great way to interact with them - through comments and advice on their scripts.

Ok, enough blabbering. Part of the purpose was to blog about it when I'm still positive~ So that when or if I become pessimistic and drowning in work, I can come back here to read this entry and remind myself to stay positive and strong! And may this entry be of some encouragement to you too! =)

Nostalgia...

2007-02-21T12:28:00.000+08:00

So how was everyone's Chinese New Year? How was the harvest? Heh.

Mine was poor... but partly my fault as well. Why? Because I pon-tang-ed some houses I was supposed to visit. Heh. Now thinking back, maybe the ang baos would have more than made up for the arduous travelling time! Heh. Oh well...

Anyway, I finally visited my nanny. Oh man... how I absolutely love this lady! I always feel so loved whenever I visit her... a haven which she has constructed for me... a nostalgic place filled with love. Heh ok, enough. Anyway, she is one lady who has seen me through my worst tantrums, my first *ahem*, a period when I couldn't speak much Chinese and she could only speak Chinese, the frustrating rush every single morning and the irritably me with insufficient sleep, the picky eater, etc. She survived all of those, and still loves me for who I am!

She still remembers all my little quirky habits! And she never fails to comment on whether I have grown taller, fatter or lost weight, or whether my meat is hard / soft! Hahaha! She always gives me this smile when she sees me, and always has faith in me. And she knows exactly what I love to eat, even though I am unaware at times! Heh.

For example, she fed me a generous portion of black olive vegetable from the can (one of the nostalgic favourites of mine), fermented beancurd, chap chye, steamed fish with fermented soy beans mixed with vinegar and red cut chilli and porridge. She knew that I love it spicy, and even knew that I would finish picking all the beans! (And I had done it unknowingly!)

Amazing!

And as I almost dozed off on the sofa, she commented that in the past, I could never spend more than 10 minutes sitting on that sofa, cos I would automatically doze off horizontally and she would have a hard time waking up to go into the room to sleep! Heh. Now the sofa is a tad bit short for me to lie on! Haha!

And her house has not changed much. I still remember how I loved to sit beside the fridge in the kitchen cos that was the most cooling place, and talk to her as she cooked. Man... I could never resist her cooking! I learnt how to eat all the varieties of vegetables (not vegetation) cos she's a lover of veges. I also first learnt that sesame oil was very fragrant, and I called it "pang1 pang1". Whenever she used it to season meat, I would never fail to take a deep breath of it! And how I was the only "weird" one who would sit there beside her and appreciate the gnawing of braised duck neck and the tearing apart of fish head, etc. All those times when I felt the thrill of picking the glutinous rice from the normal rice during "Dumpling Festival" (haha!)... so that she can make "kee chang" for me.

She can always be counted on. A vivid memory was how she walked all the way to my primary school to pick me up when I was the last one to be picked up and the gate was about to close. And all the times she helped me find a Chinese character from the newspapers when I didn't know how to write it. And I knew she was in fact a very wise woman, who didn't have the opportunity to study. Heh. And she never failed to make it laugh cos she's amusing and she finds me entertaining. Haha!

Alright, enough said. I need to make it a point to visit her more often, and not survive 2 years without seeing her. There was a time when I dreamt of her and knew I was missing her too much.

Oh well, that's my token of appreciation to her on my blog. =)

Forgiveness as an issue?

2007-02-15T08:09:00.000+08:00

Why is it that I always feel like I'm knocking my head against the wall? Time and again... time and again... It always looks so tempting. Or is it just cos I'm so dumb to see that there's actually another way round it?

Or is it cos my perspectives are all wrong? Maybe I should really try to see things from God's point of view. That I am here to serve Him, and not me. And if things were to happen in the opposite manner (or another manner), then maybe it's His way of telling me i"t's not time yet... wait", or "no, this is not appropriate", or that He's testing me to see how I fare (how I handle the situation) and I've failed His test again.

Where's the faith? Where's the strength?
How do I say "I'm not important"...

If forgiveness is really my issue here, I really do need lots of strength. I know that God forgave all my sins (however hedious) and loved me so much that He sent Jesus down to die for me. And that I have no right to not forgive others, because I am a sinner too.

But when do I say "enough is enough"? Is there a limit? Do I even have a right to put a limit to it?

You know, I always felt that forgiving is a weak person's job. To forgive because there's nothing else you can do. But when you 'punish' the wrongdoer, you are actually punishing yourself as well. There's always this load burdening you, and you get literally tired in the process. It's easy to say "I don't care" but frankly, we cannot don't care.

But when you are put into the situation, to forgive requires lots of strength. The strength to actually accept it, to actually let it go, to give freedom back... and to gain freedom in return. It definitely isn't a weak person's job... but a job which requires lots of inner strength.

Saturday fun

2007-02-12T15:50:00.000+08:00

I finally had a good time of play! Yay!

I was awakened to home-made Arabbiata pasta... heh. How many of you actually have your kitchen transformed into an Italian kitchen, with a chef which takes pride in combining the aromatic flavours of herbs and exquisite ingredients to produce an unforgettable meal/s? *grin* Thank God for Auntie Linda!!

The bright, shining sun tempted us into a fun day outdoors frolicking on the beach! We invited Auntie Linda and Uncle Pino along... Heh. It felt like they were the parents bringing their kids to the beach on a weekend! So off into the choppy waves Kel and myself went... as we rowed our way to the seafood restaurants, drifted along with the waves till we were a tad bit too close to the gigantic ships, played ji-go-pak while rocking in our banana boats... before paddling endlessly back to shore.

On the shore, we found Auntie Linda waiting for us. Heh. So it was another round of fun and games! We played volleyball with my cutie 'Number 5' red ball ball till the wind threatened to blow it off course and into the sea. Then we switched to chatek for a while before finding it too tiring. In the end, we settled for frisbee!! We had such a thrilling time throwing, jumping and catching it in weird positions and throwing it almost immediately again! Man... I laughed so hard! Heh. And we wouldn't have stopped if somebody hadn't nagged. Heh. I like playing with Auntie Linda. Do you know that we played chatek in my hall for more than an hour?? Heh.

To top it off, we had subway for dinner.
"Subway... Eat fresh!"
It's healthy and yummy! Although the ABNN guy at subway not only cheated our feelings, but was also rude to us! Hmph. Oh, and if your tolerance level of spiciness isn't exactly high... maybe you would wanna skip the jalepenos... =)

Half Nalgene vs Half Nelson

2007-02-09T11:33:00.000+08:00

My poor Nalgene almost became a "half Nalgene" when it got the greatest shock in its life! Poor thing...

I received the SMS from someone who was starving and wanted to eat OCK currypuff. Since I had promised to feed her, I left my comfy environment in Starbucks and headed for the nearest OCK. I had expected it to be at Heeren, so I ran there, as if I was in some Adventure Race. In the process, I almost got hit by a car emerging from the carpark, due to the complicated roads just outside PS. Then as I was dashing cross the road, poor Nalgene hopped out of the bag pocket, attempting to roll along with its owner, but it suffered a concussion instead and was in a state of shock. More beckoned... The owner had arrived at the other side of the road before she discovered Nalgene's actions! And lo and behold! The vehicles kept heading towards now-petrified Nalgene! And everyone looked on in anticipation... with "oohs" and "ahhhs" for sound effect. The real test of a Nalgene. Luckily it was spared the unthinkable destruction... and it survived with just some scratches from the rugged road.

And to calm my nerves (apart from Nalgene's), I found OCK at Meridien! Yay!!! And so I achieved my goal of getting the curry puffs. Heh.

Watched "Half Nelson" with ABC. Apparently it's an SCGS kinda show, cos several of the people we met in there were SC gals! And they had a part to play in recommending it! Hmm, is it cos they have teachers who lead double lives in SC? Or do they themselves lead double lives?? Hmm... *something to ponder on*

Anyway, here's something I took away from the film.
"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"An interrupting cow."
"An interrupting cos who?"
"Mooo...."

Heh.

It's a good show anyway. Definitely more intellectual than the ranks of a chick flick or dumb comedy. And it's about teachers! And opposing forces... Heh. Catch it if you can! But don't sit too near the screen. It causes one to become pukey.

Boxing Day feast

2007-01-23T11:29:00.000+08:00

This is a super-duper belated post because I FINALLY got my comp to upload the photos onto blogger. Anyway, do enjoy! =)

We postponed our Christmas dinner to Boxing Day and had an absolutely "gastronimically satisfying" (Kel, 2006) and a smashing good time!

On the menu, there was seafood pasta, comprising fresh "lala" (shellfish) which squirt water out at us when they were being soaked in salt water, squid, prawns, herbs, garlic and of course, pasta! Here's the picture to make you drool...

Next up was seafood potato salad, with flower crab, of course.

Rosemary beer chicken! Oh my oh my....

Oven-roasted big fat onions! Man... how the sweetness and the smoothness makes you go "Oooh...." with every bite you take!

And of course, CHUNKY MONKEY and my apple crumble to end it all on a sweet note!

Don't forget the 2 bottles of sparkling "wine" and a dessert wine (which I spilt a glass off...)

That was not all! (Well, for food that was all... Heh.)
We played Jenga with pretty wooden blocks, where the objective was to see who could make the tower fall, cos apparently that's the thrill of it! Haha! How warped! And we proceeded on to playing dominoes.... as in arranging them in such a way that they will topple each other in succession. It was really quite fun and I enjoyed it tremendously! Especially when we formed them in a long, long straight line, and I was anxious over whether or not they will all topple nicely with a slight push at the first block. And they did!! I was so thrilled! Hahah! And of course, the fun part was knocking several of Kel's over while he built them! Heh.

Then we went to open presents... all of the presents have been sitting under the Christmas tree collecting dust even before Christmas! (And some of them are empty boxes which we first wrapped to beautify the tree. Heh.) Opening them were quite fun. We just opened everything that got into our hands, not bothering if it's for mummy or for me! (So much so that mummy didn't even know which were hers! Heh.) My favourite present would have to be the Big Children's Bible that I received from Kel. It won hands-down! Heh. I like it cos of the pictures, the stories which are simplified and suitable for a girl with a 5-year-old mentality like me, and of course, the note in it. =) And before I opened his other present, which was a box, I told him that if it wasn't cashew nuts, he could take it back, next please. Hahaha! It turned out to be chocolate-coated almonds and raisins. My favourite also lah... so I keep. Hahahah!

Then when he opened his presents... I gave him a pig-skin belt which he can offer the kway chap lady next time, and a buaya (crocodile) toy! It's very fun! You are supposed to press its teeth one-by-one as you shiver in suspense, or rather, fidget in anticipation or jump in excitement when it's your turn to press! Why? Because you never know which tooth will make the buaya buckle and slam its jaws on your poor poor finger!! Hahaha! We played this with mummy and Auntie Linda and the house was filled with spontatneous squeals and laughter! It was an enjoyable time.

Merry Christmas everybody! *grin*
May the Christmas spirit be spread to all who are willing....
And the love, joy, peace and hope of the baby Jesus remain in our hearts and in our lives... in the year to come, and beyond.

Economic Game

2007-01-18T13:17:00.000+08:00

I conducted an economic game with my classes, in an attempt to inject some fun, laughter and interest in Geog in general, and also to help them apply their Econ Geog concepts in a make-believe but somehow realistic situation.

They were divided into groups of 6, representing countries from USA, Japan, Brazil, India, Tanzania and Uganda. I distributed materials to them, according to the real countries' wealth and resources. The aim of the game was to generate as much income as possible by cutting out shapes, with values pegged to them.

Some countries only had lots of paper, but others had stationery but only a piece of paper. The idea was to get them to realize how and why international trade takes place. In the process, they discover concepts of international division of labour and exploitation (when 'Uganda' worked for 'Japan' out of desperation, and earned a small fraction of their income), comparative advantage (when 'USA' traded with 'India' because of its paper), protectionism (when 'USA' guarded its stationery (technology) closely to prevent 'Brazil' from catching up), open-door policy (when Japan realised it had to trade with the poorer countries to increase its wealth), trade alliances (when both African countries merged to compete against the wealthier countries), diversification of resources, etc.

Through it all, there were loads of laughter and excitement. This was especially so when the World Bank announced the fluctuation in prices of the different shapes, according to demand and supply. It was hysterical when civil war, terrorism, contracts, bidding and auctions, foreign ministers engaged in meetings, cheating and bribing, bargaining and even bankrupcy taking place in certain classes! It was truly a riot conducting the game! *grin*

My kind of class... Heh.

But fun aside, the arrogance of the developed countries and the desperation of the poorer countries were more than evident. The role of the state was also played out when in particular classes, Brazil emerged the winner despite its wealth, and in others, USA's wealth was just slightly ahead of Tanzania and Uganda.

I got the students to reflect on the game and apply Econ Geog knowledge to it. It was truly enjoyable to just read their individual reflections. Most common descriptions of the lesson was "enriching, interesting, fun, enjoyable, interactive, fresh". And one which totally made me fly to the skies.

"I never know what to expect when I enter the Geography room for tutorials now on Thursdays. Miss _____ (you) have this tendency to create tutorials which are far more surprising than any other tutor. Especially for a subject like Geography, in which it causes confusion in my already twisted mind, with the frequency similar to me breathing in oxygen, it never fails to amaze me what fun the tutorials have always been."

Hmmm, I quoted it here so that I will not forget that the effort I have put in have not been wasted. To have the kids learn something (be it tangible or not, be it values or content knowledge) while having fun, and to have an experience that they can reminisce on with a smile on their face in the future, and/or having touched their lives in a special way is possibly what motivates me, and what I strive for in teaching.

Ok, byebye...

More blabber

2007-01-18T13:00:00.000+08:00

Finally a breather... and here's some love for my poor, neglected blog. -muack- Especially to all of you who still check in here now and then... Cos it means that you are thinking of me! (Even though you're bored and just happen to click on my link... it still shows that I appeared in your mind!) And if you don't remember who I am... well, at least you'll be thinking of me! Hahah!

So how has life been for me?

It's been a rush... mostly school. I feel like my home is akin to a hotel room, where I return to shower, laze on the bed to read, and snuggle under the covers (yeah, the last few nights have been rather cooling...). Then when the alarm rings, I shower, gulp down a glass of water, and I'm out of the house, ready to face the day. (Well, even if I'm not ready, I'll still have to face it!)

But I've been coping well. Getting to know my kids more and bonding with them, adapting to my workload, training my ODAC kids, familarising myself with Canoeing as a CCA, trying to contribute to the committee that I'm in, opening my appetite for more work to be shove down my throat and all. Heh.

Yeah, as Kel told me not too long ago... I should get used to the fact that I have a FULL-TIME job, and not a HALF-DAY job! (But I start at 725am everyday!!) I miss those times when I could go swimming everyday, have good lunches ot tea and meet friends in the evenings! Now I end around 6pm each day, and 7-8pm on CCA days, and my Saturdays are burnt too! Where to find time to play badminton with church kakis and pure fren on Sundays when that's my only day for recuperation?

But despite all my whining, I am actually still alive, and like these buzz of things going around me which I have to do. Yeah, sadistic hor? But I guess this is what teaching really is? There's a whole amalgation of things waiting for us to do, and you can't say you don't wanna do any of it! Heh.

I've been toying with the idea of putting an advertisement up for an assistant! Hahaha! The renumeration will be some feeding from time to time! Hahaha! But I've decided against it cos I can't decide what work to distribute to her! Not teaching definitely, not CCA, not the preparation for class, not the thought processes put into the planning, to some extent not the admin either cos I want to know my students (and sometimes redundant, mundane admin can be a therapy), and not the marking cos I want to know how my students are developing. So... I guess the offer is off.

Yeah. Ok, byebye...

Recce at Ubin

2007-01-08T21:50:00.000+08:00

Back to Ubin I went... this time with my ODACers, to recce the orienteering routes.

In the beginning it was dreadful. I had to drag myself out of bed... and to think that I had to roll out of bed early on a weekend! And to endure the journey to the Eastermost tip of Singapore... but it all turned out rather well. Why? I had the opportunity to nap ALL THE WAY from Bishan to Changi (haha!), have time for breakfast at the kopitiam and get tempted by the yummy dimsum... be the authority figure and insist on discipline, be the safety officer and watch out for the kids, be the encourager and advisor, etc. And the best of it all... to share experiences and apply Geographical skills to allow the kids to appreciate nature even more!

Everything turned out well... with the weather being sunny and not rainy as it usually is at Ubin, us spotting a snake and admiring the skin, wondering if someone had just plastered a rubber toy snake to the rubbish bin and immediately discarding that ludicrous idea when it wriggled. Oh man... YUCK! GROSS! EWWWW!!!! Ok, calm down... Back to Ubin. God blessed us with the time and opportunity when the last orienteering point we had ended at the hut on the west of the island. I thanked God and took the kids up the quarry... all the way to the 3rd level where you ultimately stood on a granite outcrop and overlooked the emerald water below. And my heart warmed when at least 2 of my kids "wow-ed" over nature, and were genuinely interested when I described and explained certain things to them. (I guess it's like the Gold 90 FM advert... remember the "He plays like.... Agassi..." -listen to the good stuff?) Heh, Focus on those who appreciate.

Yep, so interaction was good. But my butt, back and legs got a thorough workout too! They ached so much I think I have to admit that I'm growing old! But then we were walking fast-paced almost continuously for 4 full hours!! Xiong1, but I like. *Grin*

I'm still young! And I wanna PLAY!!

"Bloop Bloop"

2007-01-08T21:33:00.000+08:00

Merf and HF finally have their own home!!! (Although it is empty and Merf seems to intend for it to stay empty... Heh.)

It's so cool! I think it's cos they are the first couple I know who are my peers and getting married and have a flat! The idea is quite unbelivable leh! Am I already THAT grown-up? But I'm only a fi-year-old! Is this all like a "pretend-pretend" kind of play... which will all end when it's time to go home, or have dinner, or nap?

Anyway, since I'm on the topic of nap... and dreamland... and fantasies. Let me annnounce here on my blog that Merf would like his house to be a pseudo-fishtank! Such that when you enter his house, you'll be required to put on flippers and a snorkelling mask and dive for your food, which will be cooked for you. His house has almost full-length windows, which can half fulfill his dream, cos we'll all look like fishes in a tank! Guess what the ultimate is? You can search for the prized possession in his house!! And what could that be?? *Drumroll*

HF the mermaid!!!!!
Hahahahah!

Can you imagine HF as a mermaid?? Hahahaha! Would she be looking miserable cos she can't walk? Poor thing....

But anyway, the wise EL has "chopped" the idea of making a trip to the costume shop to fulfill Merf's wish list. I think the rest of us are thinking of investing in a comforter or a sofa with a mermaid print on it, so that HF can slip into it and transform into the mermaid that Merf desires. Hahaha!

I wonder what HF thinks... or have to say about this!
Hahahaha!
Maybe a "Merf!!!! Ni3 gen1 wo3 guo4 lai2!!!" in her infamous screechy witchy tone which conjures up the image of her pulling Merf's ear!
*Grin*

2007 blabber

2007-01-08T20:56:00.000+08:00

A blink of an eye.... and I bidded goodbye to 2006 just like that.
It was a somewhat good year, I would say... charaterised by several small trips, and stuck with a label which says "no entry to countries starting with "Bang" for you", the year I officially started teaching, the year I met Kel.... hmmm. Heh.

An another blink of an eye (or was it a nap?) and the first week of 2007 is over!
New Year's Eve was awesome. A sweet time spent watching the fireworks in the recesses of East Coast, away from the sweaty bodies intruding on your private space and all.

School is always interesting. To me, it's like a funfair or carnival... filled with interesting happenings throughout the day, and it can never be boring. And at the end of the day, I can just stretch out on my bed, thank God for the comfy feeling and just bid the world goodbye for the night after a long "workout" at school.

This year is a huge difference from last year's honeymoon period. It seems like I'm finally visible... and like a bagpack you carry on vacation, you try to stuff as much as you can into the bag after shopping, so that you need not hand-carry anything... I feel as if I'm being stuffed to the neck (and your voice changes when you eat too much! Try it if you don't buy it! Heh) and the stuffing is still continuous! But masochistic as it sounds, I kinda enjoy it you know? Hahaha!

Not am I only straddling 2 levels and made to feel like a specialist when yours truly is actually just on par with the students she teaches! (they are trying to see how smart I am... just that they dunno I crap myself through most of the time, and that my brains are actually hollow and do produce echoes!), I have 2 heavy CCAs (at my request... cos I can't bear to give up my love), and though I was promised no form class (that promise has dissipated into thin air, never to be heard of again! However, behold! I am secretly (well, not so secretly anymore) elated cos I do want a form class (although along with it comes a whole truckload of stuff of different natures) cos it's a chance to interact closely with the kids. And that is what I find almost priceless.

I have finally met all my classes for year 2, and despite the impression that they are just mere Science students without a care for Geog... I have grown to love them, in just a short 1 hour span! As Pengy says, my strategy is "Ai4 de4 Jiao4 yu4" (Education of love)... And I am all fired up to bring them through the year, be it through breaking their hearts (and mine)while disciplining them, shoving them with work like a bottomless pit, laughing silly with them, pulling their hair (and mine) out while tutoring the slowest amongst slowest, etc.

In fact, I walk in and out of class feeling boosted and energized, that I become hyper afterward! And this is in the midst of a highly stressful period of time! I think this is MY profession. All troubles, all lethargy, all frustrations.... they just miraculously vanish when I start my lesson and entertain and get entertain by the kids. And to receive students' short liners of encouragement and promises to strive hard for the year really make me rocket skyward. (Ok, I'm easily pleased... but what's wrong about that? Heh.)

And to quote from pinpy's (2007) blog, "this job really feels like an amalgation of a zillion others - administrator, nanny, tutor, counsellor, policewoman, CEO and now...smalltown movie star." I can't beg to differ! Haha! But the feeling is awesome! Especially when last year's students grin when they see you, call out to you, joke with you, talk to you and all. A feeling of being wanted and appreciated, I guess?

I need to note these down so that I will always be reminded of the good times when the roller-coaster heads down.
But whatever it is, "God's grace is sufficient... and He will never leave you nor forsake you."

Down

2006-12-28T22:45:00.000+08:00

Dawn was breaking.
Energies spent on being hyped up.
The illusion of a possible solution out of the darkness.
Hype lasted but for the moment.
Jitters while seeking confirmation.
A simple scan.
An intense stare.

And the world started crumbling.

Paranoia! Fluster!
The heart pumping fast.
The tears swelling up.
Compose! Compose! Composure!
It can't be true... no, not this!
Why me?
No... don't take this away from me...
Not the life-saver...

Back to Square 1.
A heavy heart.
Energies wasted.
Dumbfounded.
Stone.

Is this finalized?
Yes it is. Nonchalantly.

Shocked.

No. Not now. Seriously.

Lord, help me please!
Lord, please help me!

With me?
Slightly comforted.
Glimpse of hope.

Composed.
Ok. Now.

Rationale explained.
We prepared you.
But still...
How about the promise?

Negotiation made through connections.
Play the game. You sink or you float.
Or backing you must have.
Or be like a lamb up for sacrifice.
Innocent as a lamb, shrewd as a snake.
Latter I am not.
Suffer I will.
Struggle I will.

Pray I must. Pray hard I must.
Strength I need. Courage I need.
Wisdom I need. Perseverance I need.
Trust in God I must.
Provide He will.
Every single thing. Small and insignificant.
To the best I shall thrust.
NOT for men!
NOT for pride!
But for the GLORY OF GOD!

Angels in the vicinity.
Visible or invisible.
Tangible or intangible.
Thank you anyway.
Thank you my Lord.
Thank you.

Taiwan Day 6 - Alishan and Danshui

2006-12-21T12:51:00.000+08:00

7/12/06

We headed out for the Sunrise tour of Alishan before daybreak, obviously. Heh. I tell you, it was so cold that I was shivering hard and my teeth were chattering! But I grit them and survived it in my hardy windbreaker.

That's me freezing... this picture reminds me of Australia... it seems like I'm on a farm because of the fences around!

Heh. The splendid view laid before us made everything worth it. God is amazing!

This was the sunset which captured my attention. Its gentle colours blended into the sky... its beauty accentuated by the mountain range... and the cool weather made everything more than perfect.

Little did I know that this would be the nicest sunrise picture I would take that day! Haha!

There I was... on the mountain road... early in the morning when vehicles do not pass by that often, other than tour vans and buses on the sunrise tour.

This was the spot where we were to admire the sun rising up, fitting itself somewhat into a notch at the peak of the mountain ridge. We watched and we watched, but the weather was bad that day and the sun was lazy. Hence we had no beautiful photo of the sun! Haha! What a wonderful sunrise tour!
But we did take photos of the alluring scenery to comfort ourselves.

More scenery of Alishan...

Couple trees. The one on the left is the wife, while the one on the right is the husband. They suffered a forest fire and ended up like that. However, there's still beauty in them, though it gives me a gothic feel... especially when a black crow landed on one of its branches!

The Alishan people created a myth, saying that if you are a single lady, you should take photo with the husband tree, and a single male to take a photo with the wife tree, and send the photo to your target. If you're a couple planning to get married, you should take a couple photo with the couple trees. And if I remember correctly, if you are a married lady planning a divorce, to take a photo with the wife tree, and vice-versa. Hmmm....

Since we are on the topic of trees, and since the sun was too lazy to rise and exhibit its majesty, we went around admiring trees! And this tree is several thousand years old! Look at what a mammoth it is! And how teeny YP is! Hahaha!

Yep, there were monkeys to make our sunrise tour less of a failure as well. Heh. Red faces... not red butts like baboons. And furry, to keep them warm...

More animals for entertainment? A puppy tries to befriend a bulldog...

I even caught duckies in action in the pond! Entertaining themselves! Heh. And I took a video of it! Hahaha! =)

And this was me entertaining myself.

Yep, so that was Alishan for us.

We returned to Taipei and headed straight for Danshui for some good food and shopping, since it was our last night in Taiwan. My impression of Danshui was always good, and the feeling it gave me this time round was as comfortable too! =)

Danshui Night Market

And guess what YP pointed out there?? (Nope, that is NOT my Chinese name!)

More pigging out for us! What a feast! *BIG GRIN*
Look at YP and her mushrooms and aloe vera jelly drink? The expression on her face when she first bit into the mushrooms was one of bliss! Haha!

Cuttlefish before they were grilled.

Me eating the grilled cuttlefish...

Me and my pink guava.... where else can we find pink guava?? I love them so much!

Before I forget, let me relate to you a joke which was pasted on the wall, which stared right at you when you pee-d.
Xiao Qiang (not the gar1 chua4!): Wei4 she3 me4 ni3 jia1 yang3 mao1? (Why do you have a cat at home?)
Xiao Mei: Ying1 wei4 wo3 jia1 bu4 neng2 yang3 gou3. (Because I can't have a dog at home.)
Xiao Qiang: Wei4 she3 me4 ni3 jia1 bu4 neng2 yang3 gou3? (Why can't you have a dog at home?)
Xiao Mei: Ying1 wei4 wo3 jia1 yang3 mao1...(Because I have a cat at home.)
Heh. Was the purpose of this to make us pee more?

Oh, toilets... let me illustrate our hotel toilet to you!

(Nothing extraordinary right? Heh. I remember making Chien pose like that when we were in KL! Hahaha!)

This was taken through the see-through part on the top of the toilet wall, with YP standing on the bed.

Me in a fish tank. This was the bottom see-through part of the door.

Do you get the idea? The toilet door was transparent at the top, and at the bottom! And the door was a sliding one without a lock! Even the shower room inside was totally transparent! It was weird in the sense that the bed was right beside the toilet, and if you stand on the bed and peek into the toilet, you get a CLEAR, FULL VIEW of everything inside!
*Ahem* Purpose?

Anyway, it was time to leave Taipei the next day, so we tried out the normal food that locals eat almost everyday. Their chap4 chai4 rice, in a paper box. I recommended the street I had stumbled upon several days ago.

BBQ chicken with rice and 3 side dishes. Cheap and totally yummilicious and filling! What a treat! Heh.

Yep, so that's all for my Taiwan blog!
Taiwan is really quite an enjoyable destination. It's easy for Singaporean Chinese in terms of communication, and the culture is similar. Great food, shopping and natural landscapes! I recommend! (Is the Taiwanese Tourism Board gonna pay me for this promotion? Hmm... in terms of food also can! Haha!)
Where next??

Taiwan Day 5 - Alishan

2006-12-21T11:26:00.000+08:00

7/12/06

We left early this morning to catch the train to Chiayi. However, the earliest train would reach Chiayi at 110pm, whuch would cut us quite close to the departure of the Alpine Train to Alishan. Moreover, the train to Chiayi was so packed that YP and myself were allocated to separate carriages. Not that she minded... cos she ended up talking to an old man for 3 full hours, in which the old man then presented her with a box full of 20 Tai4 Yang2 Bing3 (Sun biscuits) as a gift, and an enormous pear. Haha! While I entertained myself with the scenery...

And I came upon these contrails... which reminded me of the company at East Coast, and of Shutch in US with me last year.

I dashed out of the train when it pulled over at Chiayi. I rushed to the ticket counter to purchase tickets for the Alpine Train. To my horror, my biggest fear surfaced.
Guy behind counter: "Yi3 jing1 mai4 wan2 le4." (It's sold out already.)
Oh man! Why like that?
And all this time while I was trying to remain calm and plan for the next course of action, a lady kept tugging at me and asking where I was going. I thought it had to be some sort of scam, but I was desperate... and she might have a way out for me. I just needed to be shrewd. So I talked to her to find out more.

Lady: I have 2 tickets for the alpine train.
Me: A-huh... (matter-of-factly... But my actual thought was...."Whoah... There's still hope! My only concern was how much extra bucks she wanted to make off this desperate soul.)
Lady: Same price as the train station.
Me: Really? (My eyes shot wide open when she didn't even try to make an extra dollar off me! Strange right? Then what's her motive?)
Lady: Have you booked a hotel?
Me: Nope.
Lady: How about Yingjia Hotel?
Me: Okie... How much? (I had studied Lonely Planet thoroughly and knew the hotels and their price range.... luckily...)
And she quoted me the same price as in Lonely Planet... what? She's really not going to make any extra off me?!!
Lady: Have you booked your sunrise tour?
Me: Nope. (But knowing that I will book it anyway cos that's THE thing to see in Alishan. And considering whether to trust her or not.... I did anyway!)

So we paid her deposit and she wrote stuff on the receipts she had given, gave us her namecard, and led us to the Alpine train and ushered us to our seats. There, I met an NIE GESL friend! He asked if I had just arrived, and was curious to know how I had managed to obtain seats. Apparently, he had arrived 2 hours before and had bought the last 4 seats on the train! My my.... I really have to thank God for sending an angel down to bless us!

Anyway, this is the Alpine train, and YP and myself in it. Exciting right? It's really like a toy-train... and it transports us through different vegetation, based on change in climate... from trtopical to sub-tropical to temperate. It resembles a botanic tour! From coconut trees, pineapple plantation to betel nut trees to cabbage plantation to bamboo trees to fir trees!! *grin*

Did you know that betel nut trees are these tall? (I didn't... but YP learnt it from her friendly companion - the old man. Haha!)

Cut in the mountain for the Alpine Train's track. (How will that destabilze the mountain? But for the sake of tourism dollars?)

After 3 hours of a noisy but interesting roller-coaster-like train ride, we finally arrived at Alishan... the most-talked about place. And they really do play "Alishan the gu-niang" on the train! Hahaha!

Railway track at Alishan

My first photo at Alishan... where it was seriously freezing. (Well, it's real winter there, I would say. And poor me had to survive with just my windbreaker, or resort to renting a winter coat from the hotel.

And this is why it's worth it... Cloud-covered mountains.

When we arrived, the sun was due to set. And my oh my... it was so enchanting! So much so that I was even disgruntled over the hotel staff picking us up from the station! We hurriedly checked in, dumped our stuff in the room and can you believe it... YP even ran up and down the slope to get back to the station just to catch the sunset! I was impressed, and ran even faster!

Isn't it all just so enchanting? You really just wonder at God's creation, so much so that it makes your heart skip, just by admiring his art.

This is the picture of Alishan, nice hor?

I took this photo leh.. impressive right? It was a photo of the picture on the wall! Hahaha!!

We were hungry as we hadn't eaten the whole day, and the fact that we were cold made our tummies growl even more. But we were also short of cash, so we had to eat something economical yet filling. We decided on a hotpot place... the price was reasonable and one hotpot could fill us both up comfortably. Also, the lady mentioned that she could offer us free rice. Hahaha! So gian4 beng3 hor? I even pushed the offer to the waiter, saying that we were offered free rice. (I usually wouldn't be so cheap-skate... but I guess when you're poor... you do things out of the ordinary... Hee. Desperate measures, just for 2 bowls of rice...)

The hotpot and heap of rice that made us grin from ear to ear and warmed our bodies and made our tummies happy.

Can I please start on my rice now?

Notice the 2 rabbits? They made me laugh continuously! Haha! "First you bite one ear off, then you bite the other... now it has no more ears..." (To the tune of "Nobody likes me... everybody hates me... I'm gonna eat some worms..." Hahaha!)

What a satisfying meal! *Grin*

Back at the hotel, where we resorted to a photoshoot. We repositioned the lighting and all to get the best effect. Professional hor? =)

And we retired to bed... on that hard hard bed, with our long pants, socks, and jackets, snuggled under the huge and heavy blanket... tossing and turning till it was dawn. Time for the sunrise tour!

Taiwan Day 4 - Free and Easy

2006-12-20T23:33:00.000+08:00

6/12/06

I suggested taking a break from adventures today and relaxing. We headed for Ba Fang for our favourite guotie... It's only$0.20 a piece, you know? Good deal leh... And it's so good! You can trust me on that! *grin*

We were both tired and when YP waved the idea of returning to the hotel for a siesta in front of me. It was tempting, so we split. She headed for Ximending. But I changed my mind and headed to Taipei City Hall instead. I felt the cool cool wind and took comfort in it, even though there was a slight drizzle. Even Taipei 101 felt the effects! (It's the tallest building in Taiwan.) Look! It's as if it has only been constructed halfway, or that the top part has been burnt away! *touchwood*

I wanted to walk opposite the street from the station the last time, but didn't. So since I had the time, I went to explore. It was a fun experience. It turned out that there were many xiao3 chi1 stalls there, selling all sorts of food, from fusion to English afternoon tea places to beef noodles to shui3 jian1 bao1 to goose meat to Vietnamese. As i walked on and soaked in the atmosphere of it all as scooters and cars whizzed past me, I realised this was what I liked about travelling. The non-tourists places, the ones you just happen to stumble upon, the places which locals frequent, covering as many miles as possible into the unknown....

The one tangible reward I got from the gallivanting was a mixed mushroom pancake. I had bio-ed at t when I walked past it, and decided that I would try it out on my way back. It's like the guo-tie skin which was pan-fried, but it had a pocket-full of all kinds of mushrooms! Oh gosh! I was elated! It was incredibly mouthwatering!! Since I wanted a photo and not want people to deem me insane, I hid in a park and took a self-portrait. Hee.

Next stop was Sin Guang San Yue the shopping mall. I took a break and bought a red bean vampire-looking (cos it's white) muachi bread to sit at the classy food court for a rest. Heh.

As I was studying Lonely Planet for newer pastures, Linsen N Road sounded attractive as it is supposedly populated with Japanese stores. I took a train to Shandao Temple and started navigating my way around. I stumbled upon a roadside muachi stall, and so decided to try it. Indulgence in gastronomical tourism. Hee.

It's quite cool. He has a gigantic ball of muachi, which he makes tiny balls off. Next he cuts a slit into the tiny ball and stuffs sesame and sugar mixture into it. Finally he rolls it in peanut and sugar mixture, and sells them individually. Interesting.

And that's me tasting the muachi in my hotel room. A self-portrait. Hee.

As I walked on, I took in the sights, the sounds... all of it. Can you imagine a satisfied smile on my face with every step I take, every corner I turn, every shop I see? It was really an eye-opener and a satisfaction to just wander around. *Grin*

A huge building at a junction...

Silhouette of the road near where we stay...

A night market specialising in take-away food (veg rice) which I stumbled upon cos I had followed the locals and turned into some ulu-ated street which led into a dark alley, not knowing where it would lead me to. This discovery made me grin from ear to ear! The process mattered too lah...

It was too short a distance for me, even though I had covered a couple of streets. So I decided to navigate to Ximending, where I was to meet YP for dinner. You know, the whole experience gave me the high and the hype! I think that's why I love travelling alone at times... the adventure, the freedom...

A fruits market beckoned me. They looked so fresh! I wanted to take photos but was paranoid after someone said i "mei2 li3 mao4" (no manners), so I resorted to paparazzi. Hmm... you would want to know that that can never be my hobby, nor can I become a professional at it. It was dinner time then... so all the locals were streaming the streets searching for their favourite food. My my... the variety of food! From bento shops to lu3 wei4 (somewhat similar to yong tau fu) to bian4 dang1 (packet food) stalls.... It made my tummy yearn for some chomping even though I wasn't hungry!

Ximending. The shopping haven in Taipei.

I have to comment that the fashion industry in Taipei is really quite vibrant. Even though I'm not a shopaholic, I guess one can be transformed into one at Ximending! There's really a whole variety of stuff! Nice place to hang out if you have the money, or just interested in window-shopping or people-shopping.
It's easy to tell a Singaporean from a Taiwanese through generalization. A Taiwanese would be rather well-dressed, but a typical Singaporean would turn up in a T-shirt, berms and slippers. Hee.

Bibimbap was on the menu for dinner. Did you know that it's called ban4 fan4? Well, I didn't, but now I do. And so do you! =)

And that's me in the toilet, trying to be funny. Hee.

I felt cannibalistic, so i chomped on 2 duckie webs. (Hopefully they aren't even acquaintances or 3rd degree friends!)

This was followed by a pao4 pao4 cha2... I mean, being in Taiwan, you just have to drink that right? it's like their national drink! You can find joints selling bubble tea like EVERYWHERE you go! Well, I filled my camera casing with tea as i was posing for this shot. I didn't know my camera casing was THAT thirsty!!

And we finally ended the day in our cosy hotel room which was made romantic by this fine beach picture plastered just above our bed. Create atmosphere ah?? Heh. Shall talk about my INTERESTING room in another entry.

Taiwan Day 3 - Taroko Gorge

2006-12-19T13:01:00.001+08:00

5/12/06

You know, the last time when I was in Taiwan, somebody didn't allow me to go to Taroko Gorge as he deemed it boring. However, I knew it was a must-see this time round. Henceforth, Taroko Gorge had the chance to welcome us into its embrace this time round. =)

One memorable thing from this day was that I had pee-d a total of 10 times even before it was noon!! (Oops, did I wash my dirty linen in public again?? Haha!)

I was pestered by this cab driver even since I arrived at Hualien. (Taroko Gorge is in the town of Hualien.) He persistently tried to source out my plans for the day, and to introduce his best offer. I was skeptical. But several issues ensued. Why? Firstly, it was winter and the sun sets before 6pm, and it was already noon when we arrived. We had to head to Tien Hsiang in order to carry out my plan to trek to Wen Shan hot springs (a rugged, mysterious adventure in nature, and it's free!) and Paiyang Waterfall (another exciting trek). Visitors to Taroko Gorge required transport as it was mainly a road. The other alternative was to walk the entire 20km. But it was already late, there was no preparation, and YP would have murdered me on the spot! Hahaha! So finally, I bargained with the cab driver, who gave me a great offer, as he was promoting his hotel, and he had 2 other passengers with him, not that we minded, as long as the cost was low!

His offer included transporting us to a dumpling shop for lunch. Dumplings are supposedly famous in Hualien, as stated in Lonely Planet, which I have studied so hard I could easily take an exam on it!

Next he took us to some temple, because the other passengers (also Taiwanese, but from Taipei), had seen it on a variety show and wanted to visit it. So we tagged along...
I found a tree to meditate under. Hee.

Then he FINALLY took us to Taroko Gorge, the ONLY place we had wanted to visit! Heh. Lucky there was still time before the sun set on us. Hee. I was wow-ed by the gorge when I first encountered it. But I was further shocked by the cab driver who insisted on taking photos for us, at specific seemingly significant sites! (heh. Alliteration leh...) And we didn't know how to reject him nicely. Heh.

My my... such mass tourists we were!! He continued insisting on taking a photo of me with the waterfall at the background. His kind intentions and the "momento-sake" photography... Heh. I guess it's ok with normal tourists... but we are geographers, and hence more keen to observe how nature forms itself and its features, and not hyped up over touristy traits.

But I did give in and take a touristy picture. One which was later found on a postcard! Hahaha!

I think he later got our idea... thinking that we are probably insane from taking photos of the river and the rocks instead, and acting uncomfortably over his enthusaism to snap momento shots for us. Heh. Oh, did I mention that he thought I was a guy, and kept touching my arm as he spoke to me?? I think he realised it after some point, and stopped touching me. Haha!

Anyway, we finally had the freedom to let our cameras do the talking, and get inspired by nature, which would in turn inspire our teaching! =) I guess as Geographers, the natural, somewhat untouched environment is more appealing. That is where we can apply our contextual knowledge. Erosion and deposition of the river, different rock types, figuring where each boulder orignated from, how it affects the river flow, types of river features, the joints and bedding places, mass movement type, etc. It's really rather exhilarating. =)

Let's start with the oxbow lake which almost everyone who took Geography at Sec school level would know! Heh.

Erosion of the marble...

And human intervention. If you notice the left side of the photo, there's actually a tunnel for vehicles to pass through. A silly thing is that they argue that vehicular carbon monoxide emission is polluting the gorge, so they created another tunnel even deeper into the rock for vehicles, while leaving the old road for visitors to walk through. Have they thought of how the second tunnel is gonna destabilize the rocks?!! Sigh. Tourism. And conservation as an after-thought.

This is one of the tunnels which allowed visitors to walk through. But I have to say that I like the feel of walking through a tunnel. Maybe it reminds me of the thrill I had the day before at Bitou Cape. Heh. Apparently it makes YP feel claustrophobic.

Here are some snapshots for you to drool over the gorge. Well, if it makes you drool or go "Wowww" in the first place! Heh.

Do you find the gorge just so magnificent and awe-inspiring?! Hee.

Now comes the 'momento' photos. Heh. Our kind of 'momento' photo! Haha!

We reached the end of the gorge, Tien Hsiang. There was nothing there except for a huge carpark, but we did create our own fun, with a big marble ball! Hee.

Before long, we zoomed off to the beach (Pacific Ocean). Wasn't in our itinerary but we went along anyway. Not that we had a choice! Haha! Quite nice lah... since we were there already... (But I think we had seen more impressive stuff at Bitou the day before, so this didn't excite us much. Heh.)

After the cab driver got rid of us at the town centre of Hualien, we wandered around searching for food as we hadn't eaten the whole day. We decided on a small shop and ordered pork rib noodles and a big bak-chang (glutinous rice dumpling).

Then we went for fen yuan dou hua (beancurd with glutinous yam balls), which YP didn't enjoy, but I loved. Haha!

As we were walking around, navigating our way to the train station as we weaned in and out of streets which looked interesting, we came upon this shop.

We went in and ordered 4 xiao long bao. The skin resembled the normal pau (bread-like), but chewy. There was soup in it and tasty meat. Lovely! Heh.

We followed obvious signs, which were great for people who were short-sighted. You could have spotted a "Hua Lien Train Station" signboard from afar! Not that I'm complaining... since I don't usually put on my extra 2-eyes... We stumbled upon this pretty, arty-farty Jaapanese-cultured street which vaguely reminded me of SoHo and Greenwich Village in New York.

Through careful observation, I noticed that it was a pink landscape, with lesbians and gays hanging out either on the street or at the nice cafes. Interesting huh?

We walked on and on for several hours I think, and poor YP buay tahan anymore. She complained that I refused to let her take the bus! Haha! We did end up buying a cold strawberry muachi to perk her up. But when I posed with it, "blow wind blow" and the pretty muachi packaging landed on the ground, while I juggled the muachi, which fortunately didn't suffer the same fate as its clothes. I did end up in a laughing fit though! Hahaha!

Tiring and rather un-exciting day as compared to Bitou Cape. I attribute that to the fact that we didn't have the freedom to explore things by ourselves, and were consistently rushed into the cab to proceed onto the next stop. I think that's why I really dislike mass tourism, or organized tours.

Taiwan Day 2 - Bitou Cape

2006-12-19T12:05:00.000+08:00

4/12/06

After some deliberation, we decided to do something different and travel to Bitou Cape.
But first, some breakfast from the number 1 breakfast place downstairs... well, that was until YP quarelled with the auntie cos the latter was being unreasonable and prejudiced. Anyway, there's zhen1 jiao3 (steamed dumplings) and pork floss crepe.

To Kee Lung (Ji1 Long1) we went. I always felt the Taiwanese spelling of it sounds really awful! But that's like the pit stop for travelling to all the geography havens. And the adventure began...

We boarded the public bus headed to Bitou Cape. I fell asleep as usual, and was awaken when YP commented that we had probably overshot Bitou Cape. I askedthe driver and he stopped the bus in the middle of nowhere after confirming her suspicion. We decided that instead of crossing the road to flag down an unknown bus at an unknown time in an unknown place wasn't the best idea, so we relied on bus number 11 (2 legs form number '11'? Heh.) instead. But you would want to know that it was pouring and the wind was having the time of its life, as demonstrated by dear "YP and her umbrella" stance.

YP was smart and suggested we got ponchos instead. So we went around like 2 little yellow ducklings.

We were braving the rain and anticipating our arrival at Bitou Cape. However, what welcomed us was a vehicular tunnel!!

What choice did we have?? But to be honest, I was quite happy, cos that would add to the adventure and the excitement! How often do we get to walk through huge tunnels like that?? But luckily there was a latch we could walk on and keep safe, out of the vehicles' way, especially when there was a possibility they would be speeding and not expect pedestrians in a tunnel...
Whenever huge trucks beckoned, we would warn each other, and the natural reaction was to face the wall on the left and cover our ears tight, cos the noise they emit is magnified within the tunnel. We did that so many times that it soon became funny! Haha!

We finally arrived at Bitou Cape. In Chinese, it is "Bi Tou Jiao", as demonstrated by YP who was involved in 'Charades'.
(Answer: Nose, Head, Leg)

This was to signify our eventual arrival at Bitou, where we had to ascend a slope to the bridge that would lead us to Bitou Cape. After several tries, we finally got this photo right.

You have to understand our excitement then. Anything and anything at all could have thrilled us. Even simple rocks found on the side of the bridge. Heh.

But we were not to be disappointed. We even found something somewhat similar to the Great Wall of China! Cool right?

And that wasn't all! Guess what we discovered??
The Pacific Ocean!!!

And then the wave-cut platform!! (I have to admit I have never seen one before... therefore I was exhilarated!)

You know what further adrenalized me? That I discovered a shelter which overlooked the entire wave-cut platform! And more essentially, a path with a flight of stairs that led ALL THE WAY DOWN to the platform!! Oh my gosh! I thought I was gonna hyper-ventilate! I couldn't contain my excitement and kept jumping up and down!!

Pretty right?

Up-close with the rocks...

That's how majestic the rock formation is, and how tiny YP is!

And the slanting rock which threatened to topple anytime...

All the time, we were having such great fun even though we were shivering from the chilly wind and the continuous rain. We even relieved ourselves behind some rock on the wave-cut platform! Hahah! (Or should I not have mentioned it here??) We were on such high spirits and satisfaction that we decided this was seriously a Geography haven. In some ways, it's more exciting than Yeliu, with the limestone cavities and wind erosion.

We didn't expect anything else more exciting when we had our fill of fun and photos from there. But it was not all!
I came upon rocks which exfoliated like this...

Nothing much interesting to you non-Geograpers... I know... But wait till you hear and see this!

3 billy goats!! I had been happily running up the stairs, still adrenalized and trying to keep warm... when I spotted these billy goats just around 5 metres away from me. I thought to myself, oh man... why do they need to spoil the natural landscape with such figurines?! And I got the shock of my life when they turned and started trotting down the cliff!! My heart totally stopped dead. Don't they look like the exfoliated rocks in the previous photo?? How clever camouflage!

Anyway, that aside. I was enlivened again by the fact that I was on a ridge, surrounded by more ridges!

Notice the stairs.... cos that was where we were!

The flight of stairs up the ridge which thrilled me.

Isn't it just so xiao1 sha3 to just walk up the stairs in such cool (read: cold) conditions? Heh.

So we found ourselves ascending new heights, with surprises springing up every step of our way. (I found more billy goats at the peak...) I think that's why I love Bitou Cape so much! And to have a fellow Geographer to appreciate and experience it with me makes the adventure more wholesome!

A huge compass was awaiting us near the peak! Heh.

I have to admit that there was a gnawing feeling in me all the time when we were ascending the ridges, because we didn't know the path would lead us, nor did we know how to exit the Cape, other than do a U-turn. Moreover, it was winter in Taiwan and the sun sets early. We were wet and cold and I was paranoid that we would fall ill even at the start of our trip. But I guess the si2 gin3 na4 inside me wanted to discover more things albeit the concerns. We were already there!! And I'm glad we did, or else we wouldn't be able to share this experience with anyone. Anyway, our fears were unfounded, cos we descended into tropical rainforest, which ultimately led us to the backyard of private estates, before we made our way to the busstop.

An unfortunate incident happened. I was too engrossed in capturing an image of the Bitou Cape map that YP innocently watched our bus to Kee Lung whizz past just like that. Therefore what entailed was a 1-hour wait in the cold. At least we had shelter and seats at the busstop. We entertained ourselves playing charades. Haha!

So as to reward ourselves after such an adventure, we ventured to MaLa Hot pot.

And we learned that you could boil your plain muachi in the soup before tossing it around in peanut and sugar. Oh my... yummilicious it was!! =)

And to end it all, we took the train back to Taipei, where we played scissors-paper-stone and ji-gu-pak, using both rows of seats because they were empty. How? You could move one seat up whenever you won a turn, so we competed to see who could reach the opposite end first. Yours truly was the champion! Haha! Cheap thrill...

Yes, it was the perfect day out despite the weather. (Maybe the weather made it even more exciting!) And the fact that Bitou Cape was deserted made me feel like I was venturing off the beaten track. Heh. I like.

Taiwan Day 1 - Shih Lin Night Market

2006-12-19T11:56:00.000+08:00

3/12/06 - Day 1

Yes, I did finally arrive in Taipei. What with the plans of tea-picking, prata, boating down backwaters, tiger reserves, travelling to Ooty in its toy train, etc, in India. Oh well, this was a good alternative.

From "dark" to "light".

Anyway, first stop was Shih Lin Night Market, since Jetstar only arrives in the evening.

There YP went, to satisfy her one-year craving for the famous Shih-lin Ji1 pa2 (chicken cutlet - with bones).

Then we went on to orh-jian (Oyster egg), where the amount of oysters in a serving amazed me. Well, as compared to Singapore's meagre serving... (not that most of you mind cos you all don't eat oysters anyway! Heh.) The chef was quite skillful though... frying up a gigantic pan of oyster egg omelet...

And of course, you need a greedy picture of me to make the chef's efforts worthwhile! =)

Oh, but there's chou4 dou4 fu4 (smelly beancurd) as well... don't leave it out! It's really rather yummy, the stinko beancurd... smells of the rubbish chute. But then again, if it ain't smelly, it isn't yummy! Remember to eat it with the chilli and the pickles! (But really, however much I like the stinko beancurd, I don't think I can tahan the chou4 chou4 guo1 (smelly hotpot, which contains the stinko beancurd). I think that's the ultimate!

Yeah, and to top it all off... there's the mango ice. Mian2 Mian2 ice. The smooth, delicate kind of ice. But I think winter isn't exactly the time for mangoes, therefore the mangoes served were frozen. The kind which you can throw at someone to get the thrill of hearing an "ouch!". *grin*

Yeah, so that was our first pig-out at Taiwan.
Stay tuned for more! =)

To Bangalore no more...

2006-12-02T13:30:00.000+08:00

What happened??

BOOBOOO!!! (once again...)

ROUND 1: SHOCK

I was happily savouring my food at Kenny Rogers when I received a phone call. And it was the beginning of a rude shock.

Pengy: Are you bringing your phone?
Me: Huh?
Me: Yah.
Pengy: So what time are we meeting later?
Me: Huh?! (Thoughts fly and my mind is in a whirl.)
Me: (upon realization...) Today meh?! I haven't packed and I'm still outside!!

Apparently we were flying today! The itinerary was 2/12/06 at 125am. That meant that I had to be at the airport on 1/12/06 at 1125pm! But all the while, I thought I was flying on the night of the 2nd!! Anyway, I had 4 hours till the plane took off.
So Kel had a heart attack as well, although he tried to mask it by 'calmly' gobbling down his food, then rushing to the taxi stand to wait for a taxi who didn't mind picking up customers instead of being on call. Heh. He was seemingly so gancheong that he was farting all the time! =)

I calmly packed everything and waited to go to the airport. Honestly, my heart was beating quite fast and I didn't know what to think, cos it was gonna be an adventure in India, coupled with the geography of fear of ABNN. I wasn't feeling too well also, being plagued by constant headaches these days. I felt like I was just being whizzed around, and that the time had come too early.

We finally reached the airport and queued to check in.

ROUND 2: SHOCK AGAIN

Lady over the counter: Where's your visa?
Pengy and me: Huh?
Lady over the counter: Singapore citizens need a visa to enter India.
Pengy and me: Huh??!

Lady over the counter walks off to double-check.
I pray really really hard that everything will work out fine.

Lady over counter returns with someone supposedly more senior than her.
More senior lady: I'm sorry, but Singapore citizens do require a visa to enter India. No airlines will take you. I've checked, India doesn't allow you to buy a visa upon arrival, nor do they issue electronic ones. You have to go to the Indian Embassy and apply for one. However, I'm not sure how long they take to issue one. And you definitely cannot obtain one over the weekend. Maybe you would like to proceed to Counter One to change your dates before we close...

Pengy and me: (In shock)

After much hassle, we realised that it was almost impossible to change the dates of our flight because of clash in schedule and availability of flight. The poor counter 1 lady looked really tired while doing her utmost to help us. She was concerned with the high amount of money we had to top up and all.

Finally, she said.
"I'll try to change sector for you. We're not supposed to do this, but we can try."
Me: (tired from the shock and the recurrent headache): Ok. Anything will do.
Me: Oh, but what do you mean 'change sector'?

It meant we could change our destination!! Woohoo!! I prayed really really hard that this would work out.
So we chose a destination. Whereabout do you think that is??

*Drum roll*

TAIPEI!!

Yes, so we are on our way to Taiwan... and the dates worked out fine too! Yay!!

Really thank God for His guidance and blessing in everything.
"I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

Thanks Pengy for the phonecall and going through this (mis)adventure with me. I will try my best to amuse you and take care of you when we are over there. Heh.
Thanks Kel for standing by me through it all, for helping me keep my sanity, and for being my strength when I am weak.
Thanks Mummy for loving me despite my booboos. (I think she's used to me already. Not any ordinary person can qualify to be my mummy.)

And as for me, I strengthen the hearts of those around me. That's why life is an adventure with me around. *Bows*

Kok

2006-11-27T11:41:00.000+08:00

And once again my head got *kokked*

I bent down to adjust the shoe bag which was supposedly sticking out and was almost stapled by the car boot. Luckily it didn't completely staple through, or else I would have been beheaded. And my head, not the shoe bag, would be sticking out. I just got another bruise on the top of my head, to join the 'gift' I received from Harbour Front's wall.

How many injuries can one take?
How many shocks can one take?
How many bumps can a head take?

If I shaved all my hair away, what would the shape of my head be?
An undulating one? With mountains and rift valleys?

Hmmm. Gross.

Banana-saving muffins

2006-11-25T11:30:00.000+08:00

Banana Saviour is at work again! *grin*
This time making it a more yummy treat.... banana muffins!! With a twist... added crumbs at the top of the muffins to give a an extra crunch and added sweetness.

Don't they look like chwee kueh?

Cooking in the oven and rising gradually... Once they rose so much that mummy burst into laughter when she peeped at them! Haha!

"Roasting" and tanning themselves... I love their colour! I also want!!

The finished product. Mmmm...

I made so many this time round I feel like I'm in the production line!
Open your mouths people... for me to pop them in! Heh.

Omelet monster

2006-11-23T12:58:00.000+08:00

Does this look scary? Haha!

I was talking, talking... and forgot to lower the fire! And what resulted was a black egg!
Oh well... it was still yummy though.

Tomatoes, button mushrooms, cheese and bacon chips are a good combination for this monstrous "ga-ga" omelet.

Battered - From the warzone and back

2006-11-21T19:28:00.000+08:00

I was totally battered over the weekend from lack of confidence during a climbing course and sheer stupidity.

Level 2 climbing required me to engage in lead climbing. I was totally fine with it and fared pretty well at first. But then I realised that my belayer was feeding me more rope instead of braking, when I was descending! (But he's new at it too... so it's not exactly his fault.) But that freaked me out a little. Later, as I was attempting another wall and reaching out to the topmost handhold, I slipped. In a split second, I had ended up 2/3 down the wall! The free fall was exhilarating, but my heart had popped out and ran into hiding already.

And here's the rope burn I suffered...

These affected my confidence drastically and I couldn't even manage a simple wall anymore! I had lost all cool and my heart was pumping like crazy from under the couch it was hiding. All I could think of was, I needed to clip myself in and attach the rope in to get my first anchor, or I would just fall and die. (Lead climbing is different from a rope hanging from the top which acts as a safety rope. Lead climbing requires you to put up the safety rope yourself.)

That was the first day. On the second day, we did traversing... which is to move sideways and upwards, like Spideyman... instead of just ascending. I attempted a diagonal ascend instead of doing it 90 degrees. (Why? Cos it didn't occur to me that I could do it at 90 degrees.) My hands gave way cos I wasn't used to the added weight... you have to tug at your rope and pull yourself across while holding on. And so I was flung at a wide angle... from the right to the left and whacked my knee as hard as you could imagine, on the protruding wall on the left and ended on the ground. (Lucky my belayer was experienced this time round and 'planned it to perfection' so much so that I ended on the ground on my feet. Haha!) But I did attract everyone's attention. (Did I mention EVERYONE??)

How much shock can one take in 2 days?

And that was not all...
I was at Harbour Front MRT and rushing for the toilet cos the bladder was bursting and I was late. Guess what? I slipped with a loud thud and ended face forward. No big deal... I quickly got up. And BANGED my head on the slightly protruding wall several centimetres off the ground! It was apparently quite loud cos I could feel many heads turn and stare. I 'bravely' got up and ran away from all the attention.

And here are the injuries sustained.

Not mentioning the multiple blue blacks on my legs and butt, and the huge 'beng kok' on my head which I was afraid would be serious.

So dumb right?

My only hope...

Creations

2006-11-21T19:14:00.000+08:00

A sudden urge to cook up something for fun.
A need to work with the ingredients at hand.
A desire to create something new and excitng.
A fuflillment of the conspiracy to make him fat.

This was the result.
Chicken Pie! =)

And an amateur-ish photo at the filling. Chicken (obviously!), potato, carrots, broccoli, etc.

And another photo...

And they were followed by vampire milky muffins several days later.

Why did they turn out like that? Do NOT (and I can't emphasize myself anymore) trust 'just any' recipe and blindly follow!! Always have a healthy doze of sceptism in you. If you are experienced enough, try to work out the proportions before dumping everything together. Be smart. Counter check with other recipes. Or else it'll turn out worse than vampire milky muffins! (Although they claim that they tasted ok. I don't believe! I can take failures, you know? Heh. But nevermind, you can delude me from time to time. Haha!)

Friends do matter...

2006-11-17T11:54:00.000+08:00

This week's catching up with friends has been rather fulfilling.

Mon - Pengy and our laugh-out-loud styles must have amused the zi char auntie quite abit. She was always grinning over at us. Haven't met Pengy for awhile and it might have sparked off a dream of her. =) She was so blur that she asked me where I was going at the end of the year! (To India, with YOU, my dear girl!!) Hahaha!

Tue - Girls' night out with Chien. Reminiscent of old times. Her funny attitude (I wonder if it's just towards me! Haha! Oh well... I'll take it anyway. True?), Far East's Nana Zi Char, shopping (hers, not mine), Scotts, Yami Yoghurt, and to her bus-stop.

Me: How come my Yami yoghurt is frozen and yours isn't?
Chien: Mine is fresher.
Me: Oh!! *bursts out laughing* That's the box!! (Referring to the 'hard yoghurt')
Me: But they are the same colour!!
Chien: They are not! I can see all the scratch marks on the base of the box!

Why oh why am I always up to some booboo??

We could be more gluttony next time and order everything from the food court after dinner! =) Count Meow and Becky in too! (As long as Chien doesn't don her green polka-dot dress, Meow will be free for dinner!)

Wed - Pure fren fiesta! Another gluttony day where I gobbled down Raffles City's bak-chor mee, followed immediately with Soup Spoon's Mushroom Straganoff with pure friend and a tasteless Ya Kun tea. Just sitting down and talking to her is so comforting, so fun. And we still had lots to say even though it was eternity since we last properly talked! I'm glad she's thinking of playing badminton with me regularly! (And that dodo bird of an iliep "put our aeroplane"... cos of a recalcitrant student. See how we penalize ourselves when we punish students?) But iliep sent me a beautiful email out of the blue! (*touched* by an ostrich. That's what she calls herself! Hahaha!)

Thurs - Silly day out with long fren/pinpy. For once I was early! (How rare is that??) The phonecall came when pinpy arrived.
P: "Sorry... I'm here already. Where're you?"
Me: "It's okay... I'm at Borders."
P: "What?!! That's at Wheelock! I thought we were meeting at Heeren?"
Me: "Oops... k, I'll take a bus down."

But I ran there instead and made it there probably faster than a bus, if you take in waiting time. A typical booboo from me huh! Anyway, we had Sakae sushi to satisfy her Jap food craving, and boy was it fulfilling! We were of course late for the ceremony we were supposed to attend. But due to the crowd, we decided to 'abstain' from it. In the end, we just collected our certs and proceeded off, since no one knew who we were or whether we were there in the first place! =)

We landed at this educational play centre where we amused ourselves thoroughly with the machines, resembling kiddos at the Science Centre. (And to think that Pinpy indulged me! Hahah!) We were so engrossed to the extent that we didn't even hear our fellow jedis calling us! We didn't even apologise... we just roped them in to play. And we won! Hahaha!

After that ensued my 'arduous' journey to Beach Rd for First Aid Course. I like walking what. But I was feeling rather lethargic from the day's activities already. Nevertheless, from Somerset, I made my way to the National Library where I found a secluded, unglam spot to take a nap at before continuing my journey. (Pinpy commented that i was like the rabbit who took a nap and got overtook by the tortoise.)

How can one do without friends? How can one do without girl friends?
Thank you Lord, for providing us with friends - for company, for support, for laughter, for fun, for warmth, etc.

A mummy's love

2006-11-15T12:18:00.000+08:00

I found this note on my table when I awoke today. Written on scrap cardboard.

"How are you my darling? Mummy gets hurt by seeing you so down and miserable or rather tired. (Blah blah blah... where she inferred right on the crux of the matter even though I never uttered a word.) Must learn how to accept what life is. Always up and down. Not everyday is a sunny day. Keep it up. Be cheerful like your mummy. I have gone through all these years. Anyway just to let you know I had a big war with my boss yesterday. I may get sacked, I won't know. My last request.... (and she goes on to comfort me and assures me)."

Why does mummy love me so much even though I'm crap?
So much to the extent that she wrote to me because she knew I didn't feel like talking.
So much that she hurts when I'm unhappy.
So much that she understands me so well she can guess why I'm unhappy.
So much that she still comforts me even though her day was bad.
So much that she gives me sound advice without pushing it.
So much that she peeps into my room from now and then to check on me, hoping that I'll confide in her, even though all I do is shut my eyes tight or look away.
So much that she calls me in the morning and talks to me in that gentle-st of voice and asks if I'm ok.

I do not deserve any of it at all.
Is this how God demonstrates his infinite love for us? Through mummy-s?
I thank God that mummy now knows Him.
I thank God for mummy.

*tears*

Drool over Mee Kia

2006-11-13T10:50:00.000+08:00

An old-time, all-time favourite. Mee kia / Mee Pok with more chilli.

Look at the veg, the minced meat, the liver and oh my, the mushrooms! And there's of course pork slices, fried wanton, towkay, lots of chilli and vinegar, crispy lard, etc.

You can eat it for breakfast, for lunch, for tea, for dinner, for supper... or anytime you feel hungry! *grin*
This particular Ang Mo Kio kopitiam stall's mee kia is my favourite, and I pledge full loyalty to no other. However, the kopitiam is now under renovation and I am worried that the stall will disappear!!
How oh how... what oh what will I do?!!

There are other alternatives which make competition tough though.. (not in any particular order... cos none are as puurfect... Heh.)

1) Raffles City's food court
2) NUS Arts canteen
3) NIE canteen
4) Ang Mo Kio/Yio Chu Kang hawker centre
5) PS's food court
6) Sim Lim Square's food court

Introduce your favourites to me and maybe my loyalty will waver? Heh.

Procastinating bookworm

2006-11-09T14:35:00.000+08:00

Been procastinating and pushing back the deadline. It's dangerous when you know the deadline that is being set is tentative. Why? Because I have the tendency to procastinate to the very last minute! Which is why I have yet to produce the work I am supposed to do!

What have I been up to?

Instead I have been plomped in front of Apple the WHOLE day (yes, from the moment my eys open to the moment my eyes shut), playing game. Haha! I stumbled upon this new game. To make myself feel better and to justify the time and effort, it's an intellectual game which exercises my brain. It's called "Bookworm", akin to "Boggle". The best thing (or bane) is that there is no time limit! Does this explain why I can play it the whole day?!

Well, after much dedication, I have been promoted from "Librarian" to "Master Librarian" to "Word Hoarder"! *smug* Though I'm definite that I'll easily lose the throne to any of you if you bother to go play! Haha!

Hmm, however I should really concentrate on keeping my position as a "teacher" though. Heh. A teacher on holiday just makes the procastinator more active! (Is that an oxymoron?)

Boing Boing...

2006-11-01T18:24:00.000+08:00

Everyone, let me introduce my Red BallBall...

NAH! =)

Say "Hi"!! *grin* Notice the word '5'?

It was the only one which drew my attention and sparks flew. When I laid my eyes on it, I knew it was my perfect ballball. But it was stuck in the middle of a tall cage, being trampled upon by a huge load of other ballballs of different colours and numbers!But with determination and peseverance, coupled with ridiculous climbing of the cage and bouncing off of many other irrelevant balls which ended up targetting innocent victims, we managed to retrieve my beloved red ballball.

YAY! *grin*

Boing boing boing...

Roti of love

2006-10-31T08:40:00.000+08:00

A lethargic girl returned home.
Though badly in need of rest, the girl wanted to hang out with the boy.
The mother asked if they were eating home cos she had bought crabs and was gonna fry chilli crab.
All plans were thrown out of the window upon hearing that chilli crab was here to visit.
A call was made to the boy to buy roti to go with the crab.
The boy agreed.

But the boy could not find roti anywhere.
The girl told the boy to just come. They could walk to Thomson to get the roti.
The boy did not respond.
The girl grew tired of waiting and decided to walk to Thomson herself instead.
As the girl was walking, she hoped the boy would turn up somewhere. Wishful thinking.
At Thomson, the girl waited for the roti to bake blissfully in the oven.
When the roti was freshly retrieved from the oven, the girl bought it.

The girl walked home in the drizzle with the warm roti in her hand.
All the while hoping secretly that the boy would turn up somewhere still.
The girl made a turn into the estate.
The girl spotted a car.
The boy's car!
But puzzling. Where was the boy?
The girl waited in the rain.

In a matter of seconds, the girl spotted a boy running towards the car.
What was that in his hand?
A roti wrapped in a similar fashion!
All was clear to the girl.

The boy had gone to ways and means to buy the roti the girl wanted.
The boy had done so because he knew the girl was tired.
The girl's heart was moved.
She went to the car and got into it nonchalantly.

The girl who set out to find 1 roti found a boy and a roti as well. In the end, the girl had a boy and 2 roti.
Both roti were warm and fresh, but the girl's roti was fresher. =)

Climbing, anyone?

2006-10-31T07:58:00.000+08:00

Woke up on a high cos I was going climbing!

For those of you who know me, I love climbing. But I haven't done that in a while, and I'm growing fat and heavy and weak and old already. Not as agile and energetic as before. Heh. But I still love the thrill it gives me.

Anyway, I was due for Level 1 course. Well, overdue in fact. Been doing belay school and ropes and setting up anchors for years already, but never was I certified. Why? Maybe cos there never was a real need for it? And I was giam-siap too lah. Why pay to learn something that you have been teaching? But those of you in the field worth your harness, carabiner, ATC and rope, you know the importance of certification in this time age and space...

Yep, so off I was, whizzed into a dreary theory lesson where I focused on what the youngster was leaving out, and how he could improve his teaching instead of the details. Soon I was bored to tears and my head grew so heavy it threatened to topple over. It didn't help that my tummy wasn't cooperating and off throwing its tantrum and growling at any moment possible! Thank God there was a tiny break to sort that confused body of mine out before the next session which was interspersed with hands-on activity. Well, literally hands on the equipment.

Belay school. I love belaying. I love dangling my climbers in the middle of no where, letting them swing from side to side as I torture them. Wahaha! I like the feeling of being in control, to be trusted with the responsibility of safely belaying the climber. I like being good at what I do. (Though the things I'm good at can be pathetically counted by using my fingers, and not even my toes!) Though my ego was boosted when the senior instructor said I was a pro. Heh. Cheap thrill. I wish I was out there belaying some Big Mac and flying in the process due to the difference in weight while earning some bucks!

My tummy needed a spanking, so I wasn't really in the mood to attempt the other walls which required more brain and brawn. (Both which I lack... I only had one persistent growling tummy!) We rushed to lunch. High point of the day! The satisfaction, the shuang-ness of food entering the throat and down to pacify that recalcitrant tummy of mine... I soothed it further with peanut ice kacang. Hahaha!

Back to climbing. With the tummy appeased, there was peace of mind to climb again. I innocently attempted a wall and scaled to the very top, where I struggled to reach the final jug at the overhang. I struggled and struggled to no avail. There was absolutely no grip for me to reach out for that "star". And then I gave up. I felt disappointed... a little disgusted, for failing. But when I learnt that the entire wall was actually an overhang, I felt a little better. And when I observed that others could not complete the wall either, I felt a whole lot better. Haha! Though that didn't make me feel better about myself cos pride is no good. Where is the humility I should have?? Maybe I should stick to lower ground. Like bouldering.

Bouldering is like a torture chamber to me. A gym where you train your upper body strength and do problem-solving. No rope is needed, just a spotter in case you fall. I just whacked the bouldering wall, determined to solve the problem set. Problem was that you needed to progress from a specified series of one hand hold to another till you reach the final destination. Rules are that you can place your feet anywhere, but start and end with both hands on the hand hold. After much touching and feeling and grabbing (k, that sounds gross... hahaha!), I ended up like a koala bear stuck to a tree, or a baby monkey stuck to his mummy's body, unable to move at a height of 3 meters. I held on for a bit before letting gravity take its toll on me as I experienced the all-too-short free fall.

I love heights. =)

I'm now certified with Level 1 climbing. Behold! Level 2 climbing certification on its way!

My Hari Raya

2006-10-25T12:55:00.000+08:00

The ambitious plan to have Dim Sum at Red Star was immediately crushed when the carpark was filled to the brim, and the lift opened our eyes to a sea of humans flooding Red Star, as if they were fleeing and waiting for a ship to evacuate them from some war.

The quick-thinking and gluttony me coaxed mummy to walk to Miramar Hotel for Dim Sum buffet instead to satisfy her craving. Along the way, we struck up a conversation with a lady who was overlooking the longkang. What did we talk about? What else?? The longkang fish! And whether they are edible or not.

I observed the flow of human traffic from the hotel lobby as mummy went about her big business. (Should I have mentioned the latter here? Oh well...) I concluded that the dim sum restaurant was another destination for affluent dimsum-craving Singaporeans. There were no vacancies, not even a tiny table with 2 chairs, for the mother and daughter.

The daughter didn't want to disappoint the mother. After much deliberation, she decided to splurge and treat her mummy to a Japanese ala carte buffet at an authentic Japanese restaurant... praying hard that there would be at least a small table for us to squeeze at. We managed to squeeze at the counter, overlooking the waitress mix her Macha shake.

It was an awesome choice! The food was yummilicious! These are what the gluttons feasted on...

Salmon sashimi in some vinegarette sauce
Stick salad in some indescribable sauce
Japanese Oden
Seafood soup (served in a mini teapot and mini teacups)
Handroll
Inari sushi
Salmon, Tuna, Squid, Octopus sashimi (served beautifully)
Paper hot pot
Grilled Mackeral
Grilled Salmon (The skin is to die for!)
Yasai Tempura (Eggplant, Carrot, Sweet Potato, Pumkin, Ladies' Finger)
Ebi Tempura
Shitake Mushroom Tempura (This was so yummy! I even laughed at the waitress when I asked how many mushrooms there were in one serving and she said one. Hahaha! I had at least 5 gigantic mushrooms! Hahaha!)
Pork Cutlet
Agedashi Tofu (I think I ate my fill… Haha!)
Cold Tofu
Curry Beef Udon
etc

I was very happy throughout cos the servings were all personal size. Small, exquisite, cute even. More satisfying was that the quality of the food was good and mummy was happy.

The mother and daughter were stuffed and the daughter proposed walking home. The mother violently objected. The daughter just walked. They discovered this mini Japanese garden and took a rest there when the boy called. After savouring his Italian lunch, he came for us. And off to Botanical Gardens we went... Yes, the mother, the daughter and the boy.

A walk around the Garden made us groggy. Maybe the plants give out a special chemical that makes you groggy.

In the evening, the boy and the daughter went for a jog before ending up playing frisbee and ball at a personalised piece of grassland. The ball ball is my new toy! It's a red rubber ball which bounces well, with a doggie and a number "5" imprinted on it! Pretty hor? The boy and the girl bought it after much effort (climbing, stretching, jumping, stragetising, etc) to retrieve that solo red ball ball from the cage in Giant. I love the effort! Heh.

The girl finds it a bliss to just relax and play ballball with the boy. Or to just go for a walk.
An enjoyable day it was.

An elaborate attempt

2006-10-21T13:25:00.000+08:00

It was K's birthday yesterday, but being the procastinator I am... I have but shambled plans here and there! Lots of ideas, but little has been done... Until today! Why? Because he is at camp, and hence I have more time for the conspiracy! I think I only work efficiently under stress! Haha!

So, I finally baked/made/roast/ (and some even say FRY/Deep Fry!) his birthday cake! It is NOT a crab, prawn or fish cake by Maryland!! It's a sponge cake filled with fruits and whipped cream cheese topping.

Anyway, mummy helped me with it and we had a whole load of fun! Haha!
Here are the step-by-step processes...

1) Bake the cake. And slice it. Don't underestimate this step. This is the most complicated step if you have a blunt knife! And poor cutting skills! But in any case, you can always camouflage your tardiness with whipped cream! *grin*

2) These were the amount of strawberries I had planned to stuff into the cake! How generous! Or greedy. Haha!

3) Anyway, less than 1/3 of it got piled onto the first layer of the cake.

4) This was topped up with peaches to add some softness, some sweetness and a different flavour to it.

5) And then, the top half of the cake was stacked onto the bottom half to give rise to a hamburger!! I was so excited!! *gleeful*

6) Lastly, the snowy effect was achieved. Before we decided to be more lavish and give it more "oomph" with more peaches.

There! The finshed product of our labour. It is now freezing in the fridge.
I have yet to name it. Any suggestions anyone??

A hazy discussion

2006-10-18T09:33:00.000+08:00

Air pollution is a transboundary issue. The haze is a perfect example of the externalities caused by inconsiderate beings... or corporations. What are externalities? Imagine 2 people quarrelling hysterically... Person A picks up a pie in anger and flings it at Person B. However, the pie flies all th way and ends up flat on the face of Person C, who was uninvolved in the whole commotion. Therefore, innocent and suay Person C suffered the externality (pie).

Same goes for Singapore, who's uninvolved in the whole forest fire issue in Indonesia, but has to suffer from the resultant haze. Tolerant as we are, I think the Indonesians are taking our tolerance for granted and not taking enough responsibility in shouldering the blame. In the sense that, they confess (cos the choice ain't theirs, and they were caught red-handed), but they do not repent.

Instead, they blame the indigenous farmers who clear the land through uncontrolled blazing. How about the large plantations which require multiple times the land of an indigenous farmer's? Isn't this an illustration of how power relations play out in politics?

Corporations with the power of the dollar sign can cover up for their sins, when their actions have caused a definite impact, larger than those of the individual farmers. But poor individual farmers have to bear the brunt of it all because their power index is nought. And let's not forget the government who will naturally side the huge corporations who bring in the investments and the profits. How many governments have the strength, the ability and the integrity to stand up to these economic stakeholders?

Nations call for Indonesia to impose strict regulations on these culprits. But is it ever done? Even if they are finally imposed, how closely are they implemented and monitored? Myopic in my view as I am, I can just imagine the civil servant smiling and giving in when a stack of dollar notes is shoved to him with a pat on his back. At the background, the corporation is sniggering at how simple (and cheap) it is to get around the rules. This is assuming that it is a private limited. How about the government-owned corporations? Why would the government want to shoot themselves in the foot or dig their own graves?

Air pollution is a long-term issue with effects that can only be seen in the far (now nearer) future. It doesn't help when these effects are minimal and mostly intangible over a short period of time, but excacerbate with no return as years past. Concepts such as sustainability are crushed, dumped and buried at the back of the minds of those who are only concerned with the present, and short-term effects.

"If we can earn now, we might as well earn as much as possible! Nothing is ever enough! Who cares about the future? We won't be around anymore! If there will be consequences, let the future generations suffer them. They are just unfortunate to be born then! Let's continue our profiteering avenue! Nothing can stop us! Wahahaha!"

Remedial action will only take place when tangible effects on the environment are felt. But when the situation improves slightly, enthusiasm and efforts fade away. "Out of sight, out of mind?" More cooperation between ASEAN countries should take place. Maybe with more vigour, clear goals in mind, suitable strategies, a set timeline and a commitment to close implementation from all parties. Maybe ASEAN's culture and soft approach may need to take a backseat this time to solve the issue at hand.

The end of my blabber.

Fastest finger first

2006-10-18T08:49:00.000+08:00

Holiday at the end of the year is confirmed!

And the lucky country is.... *Drum roll*.... INDIA!

Yeah, bought my air tickets last night. But I think I'm seriously jinxed lah. Prices fell from afternoon to night yesterday. I happily filled in all my particulars and patiently waited for Pengy to fill in hers before clicking "enter" together. Why didn't we bok it together under one account? Cos we are both poor people who have insufficient funds to book for 2 pax! Anyway, she clicked "enter" without telling me!! And when I did click it, it produced an error message!! Argh! And when I logged on again, the price of the air ticket had rose by $20!! *hysteria*

The cost of a matter of seconds. *growl*

I do hope it's to the correct destination man... We were still joking about whether I'll end up some place else (deported) and she ends up alone in her Indian palace and her Indian prince.

A hazy Sunday night out

2006-10-18T08:30:00.000+08:00

Finally after countless clashes in schedule... Bong, Joan, Ben and myself finally managed to meet up for dinner. I almost forgot how comfortable I feel with them. I thank God that the trip to Gunung Datuk with strangers had produced friends like them. Friends with whom I can just be myself with.

Soup Spoon in my kitchen was good. I really like it. Heh. The idea of yummy soup. Although the soup should be warmer, such that it emits smoke. (Takes in latent heat? Heh.) A alternative choice to Glutton Square, since the haze seems adamant in enveloping our little island...

Decided to catch a movie too, although it was a Sunday night and we would end up as panda teachers the next day. (Ha! Looking at my size now, I definitely qualify!)

"Departed" is the English version of "Wu Jian Dao", without Andy Lau and Tony Leung. Instead they were substituted with Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. Plot was obviously good. However, I felt totally polluted when I stepped out of the movie... Why? Because each and every sentence contained at least 2 vulgarities! Mulitply that by the number of sentences in the movie itself! GOSH! Do they really speak like that for real or are they following the script? Is there a need for such an extent of vulgarities? Is it a status symbol, an identity of toughness, or something?

Sigh. Return me my purityyyyyyyyy!
And return us our clean airrrrrrrr!!!

Penguin dreams

2006-10-12T09:53:00.000+08:00

Have you seen the advertisement whereby the tv in it shows a really cute, fluffy baby penguin happily standing on his daddy's webbed feet?

I think that's my first and foremost wish now. To be a baby without any care in the world and to have someone love me enough to amuse me that way. (Just that I'm now no longer a teeny weeny feather-weight baby...) I wanna be lao3 leh2... Heh.

K, now I gotta act "adult" and resume the "adult-ish" act of marking scripts. And this is after I covered my backside and decided to screen a movie for the lecture I got arrowed for cos I was too efficient!(Not that they are in the mood to listen to boring content anyway!) Yeah, so if you haven't guessed it yet, this penguin wannabe has received another arrow, to reduce the marking load of another fellow.

Shall take up the cross and do as I'm told. Off I go! To penguin land where everything else freezes except for the real penguins!

Trapped in a body you can't get out of.

2006-10-09T08:44:00.000+08:00

I am trapped! Fang4 wo3 chu1 lai2!!

When I awoke yesterday, I found myself immobile. Felt like only my eyes could move! Lucky I could still talk! But I couldn't get myself out of bed at all! I was hurting so bad!

What's worse? Mummy had left in a huff cos I had refused to wake up early. So I was left home alone, to suffer in silence. However, instinct brought her back home, on the pretext of checking if I was gonna wake up in the first place! To her horror, she found me immobile on my bed!

Through much twisting and turning and lifting and massaging, I finally sat up, howling and whining in pain. My loving mummy massaged me for an hour or so, while I screamed and teared in contorted positions and expressions. Finally, we came to the conclusion that a physician would be a good alternative. So she packed me off to a physician.

In the lift, we met a neighbour who could immediately tell that I was having a ache/cramp/pull in my left upper body. And to think I was trying my utmost to remain normal! (Obviously this is a skill that I have yet to learn! Yesterday somebody even asked me why I can't conform to normality. Sigh.) Even the slight jerk on the bus could have contorted my facial expression! (The only way of releasing the angst silently...)

Anyway, there was no way for me to lie down nor sit up straight nor slouch. Oh man... is there anything more frustrating than that?! Luckily there were kind souls who love me enough to tend to me, like support me when I needed to lie down/get up, and hold me when that machine worked me. (Caretakers who care for somebody who dunno how to take care of herself.)

Moral of the story: Do your warm-ups before exerting yourself. Sleep in proper positions and use a pillow with good support.

Dedicated to Pinpy...

2006-10-07T17:47:00.000+08:00

Pinpy,

Ponder upon this....
God is good. God will never take away anything He knows is good for us. He will always have something better for us if He does take away something dear from us. Through it all, there are always lessons to be learnt... good and bad. Trials are put in place for us to grow stronger. And if we break, it is only because we are to be built up anew once again. Most importantly, we are never alone through it all. There's always shelter from the storm, and if not, at least there are people around you who are willing to get drenched with you.

Haha! I know I don't mind playing with water! *squirt* Neither would Pengy... Heh.

Hang in there! (To dry.)

Feelings of an invigilator

2006-10-04T10:05:00.000+08:00

It's quite an experience to be invigilating your own kids while they do your paper.

Before paper:
Check attendance and giggle (as silently as possible) at their I/C photos.
Try to get eye contact and wish them good luck silently. The normal reaction is, "Miss S... how? Die already lah..." Typical Singaporean reaction leh... given up when the paper has yet to start! But on the brighter side of it, maybe it's just a humble reaction. Heh.

During paper:
Look out for gancheong faces. Observe which questions they start on first. Teachers catwalk (Pengy, 2006) up and down the aisles, looking earnestly at them. The heart pumps fast... a sense of weakness overcomes me. I pray hard for God to watch over them, to give them a clear mind, to remember everything that they have studied (if they have studied) and to be wise in their application of that knowledge. I walk past each student and ask for a personal blessing upon them. It is really exciting to watch your own students sit for your paper. You wonder if they really understood everything you taught, and whether they put in any effort for your paper.

You feel proud when you see them producing somewhat impressive work. You feel sorry when you see students struggling (the ones you know have worked hard). You feel a sinistic “Haha! You’re gonna die this time round!” for those you know have taken your subject for granted and couldn’t be in the least bit bothered. You feel a heart ache when good students are answering the question wrongly cos they didn’t read the question properly, yet they are feeling good about themselves cos they are giving paragraphs and paragraphs of good details (which are unrelated of course!)... yet you can’t warn them.

After paper:
Not as exciting anymore. You wonder if their hands are already numb from the somewhat vigorous writing while you were having breakfast. You try to decipher if they have already given up hope or whether there is still a glimmer of hope in their sunken eyes. When you collect their scripts, you wonder if they are relieved to hand in the paper to you because they have a sense of satisfaction from their work, or whether it’s good riddance.

Invigilating your own students are so much more exciting than babysitting strangers.

The marathon has started. Good luck to me.

BBBRRRRRRRR

2006-10-02T12:51:00.000+08:00

Heeellloooo from Annntaaarrrcteeeeecccaaaa.... *teeth chattering*

I am in the process of being transformed into a penguin, after I was dumped here. Never thought there would be internet access here huh! (I'm sure I'm in Antarctica and not in Africa or ChinA for that matter!) But the problem is... I'm NOT a penguin! (Though I can walk like one and I like fish.) My skin isn't that thin! Skin deep... heh.

As I'm typing this... my fingers are numb and almost frozen, my hair is short and standing cos the low temperatures have stunted its growth. I'm in a foetal position, with constant little shivers, which erupt into almost-regular trembles without the "tingling effect" and the chattering of teeth, even though I'm wrapped in my brown insulator. I wonder which is worse. This or "perpetual tickling"... (quoted from Vegetales - The book of Esther, where Haman the villain was sentenced to perpetual tickling. Hahaha!)

The rational me says "Switch off that freaking CFC-emitting environment polluter!" and return all temperatures to normal! However, the feeling me says, "Let it be lah... find a compromise." especially with the competitor. But it seems like in such cases, I'm always at the losing end! *pout* How does a penguin pout with its beak?

GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!

Ridiculous temperatures call for drastic measures. I shall beautify myself with winter insulation. "A red and yellow colour combination please". But for now, red shall be the 'in' colour. It was the 'in' colour in the past, at present, and predicted to be so in future too. At least on students' scripts.

*BRRR*

Are you a neighbourhood kid?

2006-09-26T08:49:00.000+08:00

Difference between neighbourhood kids and non-neighbourhood kids.

1) Do you know what "orh-bee-good" means and when to use it?
A: Yes. B: No

2) Does your family buy lana cake to celebrate birthdays?
A: No. B: Yes

3) Do you know bread dipped in egg and then fried as "Bombay toast" or "French toast"?
A: Bombay toast. B: French toast

4) Do your friends consider your house a high-class hotel? (Example, big bed, big room, nice cutlery, even for BBQ, complimentary packaged toothbrush and toothpaste, etc)
A: No. B: Yes

If your answer is mostly "A", you qualify as a neighbourhood kid. (Welcome to the family!)
If your answer is mostly "B", you qualify as an uppity-class kid. (Congrats or Consolation?)

Which are you?

Chien's birthday

2006-09-26T08:31:00.000+08:00

Hmm... wanna hear of a plan being aborted, due to cartoons??

Original plan:
Buy flowers. Buy cake. Go to Chien's office. Surprise her. At 7pm.

Foiled plan:
Meow and Becky were late.
Daffy was even later!
Meow and Becky bought flowers (They chose them themselves! Pretty!)
Meow insisted that flowers will die if they were out in the open at the busstop. (In essence, she wanted aircon.)
Meow and Becky returned to Novena Square.
Chien decided to go for a walk.
Yes, you guessed it! Chien spotted them with the flowers! (Which Becky tried fruitlessly to hide behind her back.)
Daffy gets a call. "Plan B! Plan B!! Abort! Abort!!" In Becky's words, it was "Mission Impossible being played out".
Daffy remains calm. "Still have Plan B."

Plan B:
Goes to Ichiban Boshi (which Chien did not know, although there is an unspoken rule that the birthday person always knows where to go!)
Orders food as per normal. Feeds Chien rice, to fill her up.
Exchange gifts as per normal.
Signals to Meow and Becky to go to the Ladies. Becky is lost. Meow fortunately takes the cue. =)
Subtlely asks Chien if she needs the Ladies. Thank God she said she didn't mind!
Hurriedly takes the tiny cake out from bag and places candle in it.
Becky attempts to hide it behind the presents and soy sauce bottle. Daffy checks the angle.
As Chien approaches, Becky reminds Daffy of the cake box.
Daffy clumsily hides it behind her back.
Chien suspects that Daffy has something up her sleeves.
Chien focuses on Daffy and conveniently loses track of the more important issue - what that thing is.
Chien turns around and spots the cake. SURPRISE!!! =)
Plan B: SUCCESSFUL! *grin*

Debrief on reasons why things happened the way they did:
1) Meow and her flowers and aircon.
2) Daffy's "punctuality"
3) Chien's hyperactivity
4) Becky's reasoning on how we didn't sychronize our watches.

Chien resorts to drawing watches on all of us. Her drawing skills have yet to improve. She made a hockey stick look like a boot last time. Now, she makes "10:10" look like a digital screen instead. After drawing, we realized we have yet to learn from the past. We all had different timings on our watches. Mine was 9, Meow's 10:10 (supposedly), Becky's 11, and Chien's "ABCD" cos she can't read numbers. Haha!

Chien tried to kill us all by offering strawberries coated with chocolate. She inserted a pin into the plastic bag. Woe to the person who ate it! I almost did, suspecting it was some sour berry. Heh. What a close shave we all had! I placed the pin onto the red cherry on the cake and offered it to Chien instead. It looked totally natural. Haha! She was the last to know again. Heh.

She didn't die. How could we bear to?? The cake sucked though. Shops should allow customers to try their cakes before purchase. Anyway, it turned out all fine. ABCD. *Happy*

Meow's birthday BBQ

2006-09-26T08:11:00.000+08:00

Lots of preparation went into dear Meow meow's birthday, which was held at YX's place. The house is so big!! And apparently he's being egged on to buy the house beside his, cos of the TV.

Here's a summary of the HUGE feast.

1) satay
2) beef
3) chicken wings
4) cheese sausages
5) hotdogs
6) taiwanese sausage
7) bacon and asparagus which was yummy, but gave WX the runs cos he was too greedy! Hee.
8) stingray (which turned out yummy too!)
9) Korean sotong (which I walloped)
10) garlic bread (after experimenting with YX's cool oven)
11) marshmallows which were toasted till they looked like fishballs! (Becky so deserves the Perseverance award! Master Toaster award to Emay jiejie. And consolation prizes to Meow and Kel.)
12) A whole tub of Ribena which kept me happy
13) BBQed bananas (*drool*)

Anyway, a surprise was being planned for Meow. Decorations of the attic (how come birthday surprises are always held in the attics? Is there an unspoken rule?? Haha! No balloons this time round though! Hee.) were put up by YX and Merf. My gosh... they are quite talented leh. Very neat, very pretty. But of cos, the drawings, especially of the kitties, were by the expert herself - Emay jiejie.

So, all of us went up to the attic to wait for the "kill", while YX called Emay jiejie and pretended to be her boss calling her from the office. Emay jiejie then sent the "prey" (Meowmeow) up to the attic on a pretext of looking for her bag. In he meantime, Merf came up with the brilliant idea of hiding behind the couch. (Hello! Note: It was NOT MY IDEA! Heh.) I took the cake and hid behind the door instead, with the candle lit, while the others all hid behind the couch with Kel in charge of the camera.

When Meow approached the attic, the lights were all off and the atmosphere was dark and eerie... quiet. She opened the door and YX closed it cos we were not ready. She went "Oops, sorry!" But we followed the flow of things... switched on the lights and resorted to a lame version of shouting "SURPRISE" and blowing those silly horns. Heh. But her version of the story was hilarious! As she approached the attic, she spotted Kel crouching behing the couch, through the opague glass tiles and didn't really register his face. When the door slammed shut upon her, it clicked. She thought he was up to no good in the attic, cos everyone was supposed to be downstairs! Her only thought was, "whatever it is, I don't want to know." Hahaha! (See what impression she has of her good friend here??!) Shucks!

Anyway, it was worse than what she imagined. Kel was not alone! There was even Merf (who feels a "tingling feeling for Kel"), Becky and Elaine behind the couch with him!! Hahaha!

Yeah, so that was her surprise. Behind the couch. =)

Is the grass greener on the other side?

2006-09-21T07:54:00.000+08:00

I think I'm paranoid.

I'm wondering if I fit into a Secondary School better. After several months in a higher-level institute, I still feel lost.

Lost amongst the whole sea of colleagues (I have no friends!!)...
Lost in the syllabus and cheem-ness of Atmosphere (though I do like the sense of achievement when I am finally qualified to teach and give consultations thanks to mugging)...
Lost in the Arts department (cos Econs is freaking big, though I wouldn't categorize them under Arts anyway!)...
Lost in the whole scheme of things.

I can honestly say I'm not enjoying myself as much as I had envisioned myself to be. Of course there are great points about the school I'm in now, supportive colleagues and all. I'm not taking them for granted, but you know, the joy is just not there? Like I wouldn't want to spend more time here if possible? And this isn't healthy...

I am more than willing to work hard and give it all (If I enjoy my work.). I kinda attribute it to where my passion lies. I always wanted to teach in a Sec school, but was posted to a JC instead. I want to play with innocent young minds, (haha! sounds wrong... not "torture" in that sense!) not mature kids!(although they are also fun to play with... but not my kind.) I know the workload will be tonnes heavier, but if that's where my passion lies... it should be ok right? I was told that I couldn't make it in a Sec (it kinda angered me actually), cos I think I have it in me.

But I still thank God for His plan. I know there must be a reason why I'm here. I just don't know what it is yet. But maybe, it would be easier for a JC teacher to go to a Sec school rather than vice-versa?

K enough. Smile. Tomorrow might be worse.

Solidarity (or rather, SABO...)

2006-09-19T07:31:00.000+08:00

Since I made a fool of myself, I should pull someone else down the longkang too. =)

You know, in Taiwan, Kel was the one who always had money exchanging in his hands. I was the safe deposit. So there was once when we went to have breakfast. After stuffing ourselves, I expected him to walk to the counter to pay for our consumption. However, he just innocently (oh man, I'm using "innocent" on him!) walked in the other direction. I stared on in amazement, until the lady shouted after him. "Ni3 hai2 mei2 fu4 zhang4!!!" (You haven't paid up!!) Hahaha! It was so embarassing!! So he sheepishly fished out his wallet and gave her the due amount.

But that was not all! At Ximending, when we went shopping, we spotted a radiant red sports car parked in front of a shop, on the pedestrianized pavement. The first thought that came to our minds was that it was an advertisement... you know those promotions, contest, or launch of new car models? So Kel nonchantly went to open the passenger door and peered inside, going “Wow… very nice” and all. But what happened right after made my jaw drop and had me almost rolling on the floor laughing my heart out!

There was this guy who had this look of disbelief all written over his face when he approached the car. He got into the driver's seat with this sense of ownership… while a lady came over to the passenger seat. Guess what was happening?!! Kel was peering into someone else's car without knowing!!! Hahahaha! And the sporty red car sped off. Away from this curious maniac! It totally amused me and gave me an excellent tummy workout! *grin*

Booboos make the world a happier place.

A big booboo

2006-09-18T09:41:00.000+08:00

14/9/06 (Thursday)

A big booboo.

I had a 2 ½ hrs break today, before I return to school to conduct remedial lessons. So I decided to go swimming at Bishan. That was the only highlight of the day, other than buying groceries to season for tomorrow’s BBQ. Therefore I was excited and looking forward to it the entire day!

When the time was up, I swiftly changed into my shorts and t-shirt and got ready to leave. I happily walked out of school, in high spirits, happy at the fact that I could do something out of the ordinary. I boarded the bus and arrived at Bishan. I got greedy, so I bought a variety of mini buns and of course, my favourite bubble tea for $1! I think it’s my favourite just cos it’s $1! Hahah! It was yummy though… mango milk tea with pearls. (Yeah, someone would claim credit for this somehow!)

I was set to go when I felt a drop. Another drop. And another drop. I looked up, and it was drizzling!! Argh! Disappointed I was. *frown*

I thought, since I was rather lethargic, why not return home to catch a wink? And so I did! Happy at the fact that I could laze on my bed in the afternoon. But when I arrived at my doorstep, I realized I that I didn't bring my key!! Therefore pathetic me settled down outside my doorstep on the doormat and nibbled on the mini buns. And all of a sudden, it began to pour like never before and I was drenched!! Argh!!

Tak boleh tahan. I went downstairs and flagged a cab. Wasted my time and money. Sigh.
All that excitement for nothing.

Don’t laugh.

Taiwan (Last day)

2006-09-17T17:52:00.000+08:00

9/9/06

Last day in Taiwan. Going home liao...

Last minute things to do?
Eat guotie!!! Thrilled I was. Haha! Easily satisfied leh... Lucky him.

Drink bubble tea!!
Play basketball at the arcade! We hada record of 221 points the previous night at Ximending. Today we gained 300+ points by playing with an easier machine. It's quite addictive leh... Dunno why it's not as popular here in Singapore. Maybe it's the price.

Anyway, after darting here and there tying up loose ends, we finally made it to the airport. We were so early that we could actually walk from one terminal to another just to shop!

This is me on the trolley before we came home. I testify that the Changi Airport trolleys are more comfortable.

I strongly recommend a trip to Taiwan. There are alot more things to see and do and play and EAT there! It was truly a memorable time. A good move to just take off to Taipei, not Thailand, you people! I really enjoyed myself through and through... especially the food, nature, the hot spring, night markets, and of course, the company. Heh.

Taiwan (5th day)

2006-09-17T17:03:00.000+08:00

8/9/06

This was one of the most memorable days. Why? Cos we attempted new stuff and I got fed a whole lot of yummilicious food! Who said food can only work its ways to a guy's tummy? My tummy too!!! =)

Anyway, we first headed to yangmingshan nature park. Was supposed to indulge in more nature, not that Kel was looking forward to it. But you know, Yangmingshan iis quite popular in Wuxia tv serials... and I seriously wouldn't have minded a trek. But when we finally arrived there, it was ulu-ated and it was pouring meow and woof! So we ended up taking shelter in Starbucks. Yeah, there's a Starbucks at Yangmingshan! Next time those wuxia heroes can date their shi-mei at Starbucks.

This is Kel enjoying his daily tea intake at Starbucks.

Since the rain wouldn't stop, we deliberated over going straight to the hotspring. We decided that going to Beitou, which is known as the most popular hot springs area, was more convenient if we were to head down to Danshui. So off we went in a bus. I insisted on orienteering to the specific hot spring hotel stated in the guidebook. Kel obligated. So off we went stomping into puddles, getting all drenched in that heavy downpour, as we orienteered through the winding roads to Asia-Pacific Hotel. It was a good choice, as compared to the other places we checked out along the way, which only offered a bathtub filled with hot spring water. (Didn't know they could make such baths sleazy. The reception always asked if we wanted a bed. Hello! I just wanna dip into the hot spring which is beautifully designed just for the kick of it!)

You get a 2-hour dip, with a nice dressing room for you to change, with hair-dryer, sterilizer for the hairbrushes, nice towels, kimono, etc. This was the hot spring. A private one, with your own toilet bowl, shower and all. I don't see myself going to a private one where people just strip in front of you! Pretty huh? Natural rocks, for perches inside to sit on.

Refreshed after the 2-hour dip, to enjoy the ambience of the hotel's exterior. Quite Japanese-like. Taiwanese are quite into Japanese and Korean culture, I realised.

We headed to Danshui afterward. We made it all in good time, thanks be to God. There was free shuttle bus to the train station, or else we would have to make our way down the hill, through those long winding roads....

This was at the train station, when Kel told me to pose properly and not give those ridiculous poses. Bleah.

We arrived in time for the sunset. Tourist area, but I don't mind... since it's so pretty! Good food and I get to take the boat too! We tried all kinds of transport! Air, rail, road and sea! =)

This was taken to capture the sun's rays. The atmosphere scatters the short wavelength blue rays first before leaving the longwavelength red and orange rays, hence giving us a pretty sunset. (Trying to sound intellectual here.)

Becoming perfect at taking our own shots...

Trying to capture both us and the Fisherman's Wharf's bridge in the background. Reminded me of the bridge at Kallang...

Now on to the food! The best part of it all!

Guotie. Long skinny ones. The chives one just make me crave for more!! Moderation!! And cheap they are! Only 5 cents each!

My big big lighted ice-cream! I just had to hug it! =)

Pink guava! How many of you have eaten pink guava?? Seldom found back home. What a waste. It's sweet and juicy, unlike the white ones we have....

Oh... my cuttlefish! To die for! It was grilled to such perfection that it was still soft and tender!! -Slurp-

This was the best of the best. Deep fried variety of mushrooms. Shitake, golden mushrooms... -licks fingers- YUM!

Yep, a satisfying, eventful day. Loved it.

Taiwan (4th day)

2006-09-11T09:26:00.000+08:00

7/9/06

We headed to Kee Lung (pronounced as Ji1 Long2), to catch a bus to Yeliu. We missed our stop and hence had to ask for directions to Yeliu. We enquired at a 7-11 and told to take a cab from up front. We were also asked to take from a driver surnamed Lee. When we went there, we had this feeling that ALL the taxi drivers had surname Lee! Hahaha!

Anyway, we finally arrived at Yeliu. And I was so excited! I was like in Geography heaven! All the rock formations were so exquisite! First-hand experience with the horizontal bedding planes, vertical joints, wave erosion, wind erosion, plate tectonics, weathering.... which gave rise to all kinds of formations, like the Queen's head rock, Fairies' Shoe, the mushroom-like landforms, potholes, etc. My gosh! I so enjoyed myself! Trigger-happy I was too! I was so happy I could have gone gila!

Queens' Head. Formed by aeolian (wind) weathering.

Fairies' Shoe. Isn't it amazing what erosion can do?!

Released into the wild, back onto the rock.

Onto the potholed landform.

Horizontal bedding planes.

Typical text book photo of weathering.

Cape out to sea, with pretty horizontal bedding planes of varying heights.

We started picking up baby seashells on the seashore. And guess what? i found a hermit crab! We played with it till it left its shell, in search of an undisturbed one. But we continued terrorizing it. Haha! Kel was so fascinated cos he had never seen one! In the end, we found 3 hermit crabs and we made them a happy family. Haha!

First toy. Hermit crab which migrated from one shell to another. Not shy.

Non-hermit crab. Found in a flooded pothole.

We ventured further, and entered the coastal area. We found caves, admired the strength of he wave erosion on the joints, admired the beauty of the sea, the many potholes which looked like tortoises, the water-filled potholes which threatened to swallow us in, etc.

Hmm, a theory is that the tortoise got buried in the depression for many thousands of years. God is so amazing... look at what corrasion can do to produce such pretty potholed-like tortoise! =)

Fun. Even the long walk out to the main road was fun! Haha! I guess sometimes the company does play a part...

An attempt at an artistic shot. It's the model that counts at time. =)

Ossim should get its inspiration from nature!

Oh Crystal Ball, pray tell art thou... why am I forced to take such shots??

Wow! Huge ice-cream scoop!! All my!! Wahahah!

I told you I can fit in here! -smug-

After spending like 5-6 hours in that little Geoglogical park, we headed for Ximending. This time, we were there to visit the Asian Food Court. My my... was the ambience enticing! It felt like we were in some posh restaurant! I ordered Kimchi Seafood Soup and it was served in a big metal bowl perched on a wooden tray.

Kel ordered grilled chicken with rice and soup. Sounds normal, but it was really yummy! Even the yakult was nice! *grin*

We had a walk around Ximending. It's really a shopping district ya... with its pedestrainized area and all. Lots of ah-lian stuff though. Heh. We ended up having douhua, which wasn't too yummy. Yet to find yummy douhua in Taiwan. Oh well.

This is the douhua and pearls.

Lou Wei. You choose the stuff like you do with yong tau fu, and they cook in herbal dark sauce for you.

We played basketball at the arcade, to see how many goals we could get. It's a hot thing in Taiwan, and the trained ones are really fantastic! No need for aiming and they are already guaranteed a 99% goal! We fumbled with our coordination... and were losers. Haha!

We went home after that, and did our usual dash to the exit from the underground shopping mall. Just a slight attempt to shed off some of the calories we took in. Heh.

To Taiwan and back (part 3)

2006-09-11T08:48:00.000+08:00

6/9/06

This time round I made a point to get up early s as not to waste my trip there! Although the piggy would have much rather just nua-ed the day away! =)

We had yummy breakfast. It made us happy.

Carrot Cake with Egg.

Steamed dumplings.

Jian bing with pork floss. Effectively, fried egg pancake/crepe with pork floss.

And that's the duckie posing. Haha!

Took the train to Ruifang. I'm always happy to take trains! =)

Had a nice journey there. Transferred to a bus to get to Jiufen. This was up in the mountain, so it was more cooling and there were nice views from the top. Made me even happier. Although if there was cable car, I'll be elated. Haha!

Jiufen was full of food. Touristy area, but I guess to indulge in mass tourism is quite fun at times too. Lots of food. Again. Haha! My cold strawberry muachi was just heavenly!

Followed by layered bean muachi...

And my mini smelly tofu (I kinda enjoyed this actually, till the smell gets to me. Heh.)

This is the 'normal' chou tofu. I can already smell it from here! Hmm...

We just took in the beauty of Jiufen's teahouses and its peak. Nice.

This is Kel's expression when I am naughty. He was intriqued with this "Swatter hand".

The enormous Mala Whopper Burger at Kee Lung. How many Daffies would this feed?!

Decided to check out the cave near Kee Lung, so off we went on our little adventure. We arrived at the place, but could see no cave. We saw a long flight of stairs leading up to a temple, so we climbed. Still no cave. After asking around, it proved that my theory of the cave within the temple was right. So we descended and entered the temple. But disappointed I was! The cave was so small! And it was transformed into a temple! But luckily there were small grooves for us to wiggle in and out of. Kel was too wide (note: not fat, he claims...) so he had difficulty squeezing in. Heh. Cheap thrill it was... but definitely not worth the travel there. Vietnam has nicer caves. Heh.

Tired we were... but we eventually ended up at Ximending. We headed for the hotpot place, cos I had mentioned that I wanted to eat mala hot pot. We had the yin yang hot pot and it was rather good. Buffet style steamboat. But I think what was best was the fre flow of fruits! They even had kiwi and passion fruits! (Which acidified my molars. Ouch!)

We were so stuffed afterward that I couldn't walk nor talk! And Kel came up with the theory that if you eat too much, your voice changes. Cos there would be a smaller air vent cos of all the food being piled up in your tummy and up your throat. And it was hilarious cos I did sound funny... laughing was even worse! Hahaha! You can test the theory the next time you stuff yourself silly! =)

God was good. Although we had planned to walk around Ximending to digest our food somewhat, I was trigger-happy and was preparing for a nice photo shoot, so we missed the opportunity to cross the road. However, after I had taken my photo, it started to pour heavily. So we took shelter in the MRT entrance, and decided to head home instead. If we had crossed the road, we would have been drenched and stuck in the rain at Ximending! Thank you Lord!

To Taiwan and back (Part 2)

2006-09-11T08:35:00.000+08:00

5/9/06

Slept in till late afternoon. What piggies!
We visited Taipei 101, but didn't see the point in paying to go up the observatory. Not like it's Empire State Building or Tower of Pisa! Heh. But we did entertain ourselves with the musical fountain outside, and pretend to be rich fellas shopping at the high-class shopping mall. Cheap thrill from posing outside nicely-decorated restaurants, as you can see.

We ventured on to Xing Guang Shan Yue, a gigantic shopping mall. We went straight to the supermarket, which turned out to be a thrilling experience. It was a Japanese supermarket, so lots of little pretty things to atract our eyes.

The cakes were so pretty that my standard for pretty cakes have risen several notches.

And Kel of course had a taste of heaven. Haha!

I enjoyed a total experience of the Bibimbab on the hot stone. Thrilled, I was! =)

At Taipei 101, we entertained ourselves by just admiring the nice deco of the restaurants, cos they were just too high-class for mere teachers like us. Heh.

After pampering ourselves, we made our way to Huaxi Street Night Market. This time round, it was more happening than Shilin. I made a little comment on how we should try mango ice sometime, and we immediately ended up at a shop to feed ourselves with that! What luck!

So yeah, yummy mango ice! With evaporated milk, I think. Not too much, thank you.

And immediately after that, we had bbq cuttlefish. (Which he didn't let me eat in Malacca!)

A piggy stall.... if you can make out what these are, they are actually pigs' trotters, pigs' tails, pigs' intestines, etc. Quite pretty as a whole actually. Haha!

They had other interesting stuff to see as well, such as gigantic taiwan sausages which scare me, more intestines and stuff of course, and a whole myriad of chapalang thingy, including yucky men crowding around to purchase pornish movies. There's a snake alley which is apparently quite famous. If you know me, I am terrified of snakes. So is Kel, but the curiousity in him made him wanna look at them even more! What a terrifying experience! The whole alley was occupied by snake shops (which sell snake blood and what have you) and sex shops (selling sex toys). It was just impossible to avoid any of them! You turn away from a snake shop and you stare into a sex shop, and vice-versa. Sigh. But I did come to the conclusion that sex shops were less terrifying. Just gross. Oh, since I'm on the topic of porn, the tv channels had free porn too. Sigh. Why why why...

To Taiwan and back (Part 1)

2006-09-11T08:27:00.000+08:00

Bye bye, one week break... But thank God for the break, and the opportunity to visit a new place with a speical someone. =)

This will be a series of updates on the trip to Taiwan, so sit tight! And bear with me. Heh.

4/9/06
Set off for Taipei. Visited Shilin night market and ate ourselves silly. But what was sillier was that various stalls were apparently missing from the Night Market! And after venturing to this hawker centre-like area, I felt so cheated! It seemed to have more food than the rather pathetic few stalls at the pasar malam area itself! Too bad it was late and almost everything was closed. Sigh.

Anyway, I did enjoy several foodstuff. The ji1 pa2 was especially yummy, especially the bones for me to gnaw on.

I got turned off by the many intestines of i-dunno-what and the duck tongues (which they serve alongside the oesophagus). Yike!

The bing tang hulu was good, cos of the strawberry, not the sweetness. Ha!

Hello Taiwan!

2006-09-04T12:23:00.000+08:00

Blogging from Changi Airport...

Taiwan beckons me.

Don't worry, you people of little faith! I AM heading to Taiwan! Not anywhere else... Haha! Why? Cos I wasn't the only one booking this time round! Haha!

Yeah, going there to grow fat... not that I need any help! I'll import some snacks back for you ok? =)

Please pray for us, for safety especially.

I'm particularly excited this time round cos I'm finally going somewhere new! And of cos, with someone who will take care of me. Haha! No need for the added stress!
A new experience. Heh.

Church camp at Fraser's Hill

2006-08-31T15:07:00.000+08:00

This post is super super super backdated. Well, if you know me, this is nothing new. At least it is being posted! Haha!

Anyway, here are some of the photos taken. Since a photo speaks a thousand words, I'll have several thousands of words on this blog! I win! Hee.

This was the fog at our bungalow. Notice the little hut on the right? Pretty sweet, it was.

And of cos, I had to have my share of fun with dear HF jiejie. How could anything be fun without her to entertain me? Hmmm, okie, I would like to think the entertainment is neutral. Look at what kinda sacrifices I need to go through to amuse HF? Argh! She's squeezing whatever tiny duckie brain I have!!!

But luckily there's always Emay jiejie to sayang me... well, that is if she doesn't go "Huo2 gai1" (you deserve it), which she does at times. Heh. And informal surveys have shown that the probability of her having this response is increasing, especially if it involves HF! Haha!

And this is baby Joshua. He was the other "toy" at camp. The "communal toy who amused everyone with every move he made. All the hidden signs of motherly instinct in many of the gals emerged... Haha! It was especially amusing when he was fed Milo because no breast milk or powdered milk was available for the starving baby! Afterward, we just fed him whatever we wanted, and he was happy to be fed. Heh.

I wanna play BABY!! I like BABY!! If you are reading this, will you please produce a baby for me to play with?? *pretty pretty pleaseeeee*

This is little Nicolas. The one who goes "Doy-yer-fin" when he sees the jumping dolphin on my watch. The one whom I fell in love with when I first saw him. Cute right? I love man-handling him. Haha! And he doesn't usually look so... well, extraordinary. Miss him. And his brother, Peter.

Here is Peter, the little handsome boy who proununces his words so cutely that it always makes me smile. Won't he be the kind of boyboy you would be interested in when he grows up?? Hee.

This is my crazy cell, without Yixiang (Candy floss), Elaine and Eliza. What more can I ask for, when I have such a wonderful cell?

Oh, and not to forget my tree! This is my lamb chop! We had BBQ on the last day, and my lamb chop came like that! Yummy it was!

But of cos, church camp wasn't all about fun and games. (Though I'm quite sure my mummy enjoyed the games cos she cheong-ed so much for "Dog and Bone" that she toppled over several times, but each time, she won. That's my mummy! Hahaha!) It's not all about "going there and slack". Though I heard church camps are usually quite hectic...

I learnt alot... prayed alot and the worship was just truly amazing. (Not truly Asia.) I thank God for the time of refreshing He gave me... and the direction in which He pointed me towards. It was a tough time of struggling with certain issues, but I thank God that He guided me through it all, be it through happenings, or from guidance through friends.

God is good, all the time.

Tug-of-war

2006-08-31T14:58:00.000+08:00

Kel told me something last night.

What happens in a parents-boyfriend/girlfriend tussle?

In an Asian society which prides filial piety, this is more of an issue than other more liberal societies? Hmmm... Apparently, our loyalty and priority should be on the future family which we are setting up. This is because God made man and woman (to go forth and produce?)... Parents should at this point of time learn to let go and encourage the son/daughter to set up his/her own family. However, with this in mind, we should not do it at the expense of our parents... like totally heck them or something along that line. We still need to honour our parents, like how God instructs us to.

Though it probably sounds like a rather thin line to tread on, I think it's possible. Let's just pray for understanding loved ones, and be understanding towards them. Afterall, we love them and they love us.

From Barney's theme song....
"I love you. You love me. We are one big family. With a big big hug and a kiss from me to you. Won't you say you love me too?"

A rendition of it....
"I hate you. You hate me. Let's go out and kill Barney. With a shot gun bang bang... Barney on the ground. No more purple purple dinosaur."

So which camp do you belong to? I'm the latter. =)

One in a million!

2006-08-31T14:52:00.000+08:00

Gizmo FINALLY picked up my phone!!

I've been trying to call her for AGES! Like a matter of half a year, at least. Up to several times a day....
I ALWAYS reach her voice mail. You know, I figured that if I said a couple of words to the lady in the voice-mail each time I reached it, I would have become close friends with her! However, she only hears the phone click at her side of the world. Hee.

So yeah, elated I was!! Can strike lottery already. Lucky duckie.

Yep, so I managed to talk to her for awhile... until she became too drowsy to speak to me since she has to wake up at 4am. Poor gal.

Anyway, her "Thank you for not giving up on me" made me day, and made all the countless attempts to call her worthwhile. *grin*

Japanese culture

2006-08-28T12:02:00.000+08:00

1) During church camp, you do not sleep with your family. The wife and the kids are separated from the husband, to bunk with the ladies and the men respectively.

2) The wife will have to prepare the bed for the husband by laying out the mattress on the tatami floor. After she does so, she will return to her room to lay hers. (Apparently it's a labourious process. I don't know cos I can't picture it.)
What do the guys do while their wives are labouring away? They are soaking themselves in the hot spring outside, under the snow. What a beautiful way to relax. But at the expense of your wives?? Help her first, get it over and done with, then soak together lah! (But men and women soak themselves separately in Japan. Heh.)

3) While the husbands are in service, the wives will be in the kitchen preparing a feast. The men will be served their food. By the women of course. They dine separately from the ladies too. The ladies will have a tray where they collect their food, and feed their children/babies as well.

4) Husbands do not participate in looking after the baby. There was once when this Singaporean lady couldn't cope anymore cos she had to feed her second child and her baby's nappy was soaked. She gave her husband the LOOK... "You'd better come over here, or else..." So he came over and carried the baby to a corner where he changed his diapers. All the Japanese men looked on in horror. One commented that men need not do that in Japan. The husband replied, "But men in Singapore care enough to help out." Aww... so sweet right? (No wonder these sweet men are all taken... Heh.)
The funny thing is... 2 years later, the guy who commented that men need not do this in Japan actually changed the diapers of his newborn baby! Yay!! =)

5) Pastor's wife in Japan must do 2 things. Play the piano and cook. Heh. An informal survey was carried out and most of us in church can't be pastors' wives! We can either play the piano or cook, not both! Haha! Oh well...

Maybe that's why men like Japan. Go marry a Japanese wife then. I'm proud to be Singaporean. Heh.

Missionaries to Japan (continued)

2006-08-28T11:44:00.000+08:00

So let me continue to blabber on.

Due to the extreme weather in Sapporo, her 2 little boys (1 1/2 years and a 4-month old) contracted pneumonia. Their left lungs were clogged up at the same time. They were rushed into hospital, but could not afford to be hospitalised and placed on the drip for 24 hours, even though it could be fatal. She told the doctor and nurse outrightly that she had a God, and she was going to trust in God to save her kids. The doctor and nurse were concerned, but agreed, and instructed her to take the boys back for a scan the next morning.

They returned home and sent a fax to their church in Singapore to get everyone to pray. They spent the entire night seeking God's healing and mercy. The next day, when they underwent the scan, the doctor and nurse were astonished to find that their lungs had been miraculously cleared! They had totally recovered! Praise the Lord!! In the end, the doctor brought his whole family and attended their church!

God really works wonders, and He is very much alive. We just need to seek Him faithfully. Our God is faithful, and He will never take away anything that He knows is good for us. But it's our own ignorant selves who create trouble for ourselves when we refuse to trust in God and acknowledge that He is the God Almighty. We always rely on our own means, thinking that we have the very power to handle all things. We need to become fools, fools for the Lord, in order for Him to work in us and do wonders through us.

Missionaries to Japan

2006-08-28T11:23:00.000+08:00

We had 2 visitors to church yesterday. SIngapore missionaries who spent 8 years in Japan.

Let me focus on the lady. She had a conviction in her heart when she was 13 years old, that she was going to be a missionary one day. Therefore she tried to prepare herself by joining all sorts of ministries in the church and went on short mission trips whenever possible. However, God never spoke to her again about her becoming a missionary for the next couple of years. Until she married a pastor and had 2 little boys - a toddler and a baby.

One day, she was packing her bag, ready to accompany her husband to Missouri, USA for his Master's in Theology. God spoke to her then. "You are going to be a missionary in Japan." Her life came to a full stop. She couldn't fathom the idea of becoming a missionary in Japan! She couldn't stand the culture! Especially the men! So she laid a fleece before God, in order to convince herself. She told God that she needed confirmation. That if He would send a Japanese couple to Missouri, which is a rather ulu place right in the heart of USA, and that the Japanese wife would teach her Japanese! So on they went. Hah! She thought that was too difficult for God.

But one day, her husband returned home and told her that a couple had invited them for lunch. She went, and when the couple welcomed them at the door, she almost died there and then. Why? Cos the couple was Japanese! She couldn't believe it, so she asked how they had arrived there. The lady replied that she had taken the plane. Hahaha! Anyway, jsut before the dinner ended, the Japanese lady asked if she was free. She said she wanted to teach her Japanese!! *grin*

And to top it all off, she was approached by another Ang Mo lady who asked if she was willing to allow the angmo lady to practice her Japanese on her! Haha! How much clearer can the sign be? Clearer in fact, as we learnt.

Several days later, God spoke to her again. "You are going to be a missionary in Japan." She once again laid the fleece down before God. "Dear Lord, if it is to be true, You will have to talk to my husband as well. Because the husband has to lead, and the wife will follow." (So you see, she hadn't talked to her husband about her struggle with Japan as yet.) That night, when her husband returned, he asked her if God had spoken to her. She suspiciously said yes. He then asked if it was regarding the country with which they were to enter. Bingo! She asked how in the world he knew! He answered that when God speaks to the husband, He will also speak to the wife. There will always be confirmation, double confirmation....

So on they went to Japan... to help bring the Japanese to Christ for the next 8 years.

Dinner Spread

2006-08-26T14:38:00.000+08:00

Just out of the blue, I decided that it had been a long time since I last cooked.
So, with the help of a capable assistant chef, we set out to prepare an unforgettable dinner spread.

Here are the memories.

Sausage, baked potato with herbs and mushroom steak.
The cheese sausage was yummy... the cheese oozes out when you bite into the fat sausage! =)

Shitake mushroom steak.
A self-concocted mushroom sauce... more on the red wine side.

Garlic bread with herbs and bacon wrapped asparagus. Oh, and don't forget the mushroom soup with mushrooms in it. =)
The presentation was decorated by our dear assistant chef. Got potential right?

Yep, so it was a fun day of preparing and cooking and eating.
Stuffed pigs.

Blissful

2006-08-25T09:00:00.000+08:00

My mummy made me a lunch box.
There was peanut butter sandwich, chilli tuna sandwich, and best of all, a B-A-N-A-N-A Banana! *grin*

And last night, there was a delivery boy outside my door who delivered dessert!
Funny thing was, he called my place, but didn't mention that he was already outside!
So he patiently waited until I received his SMS saying that he was outside! And I had to scramble to open the door, afraid that he would get kidnapped or something.

Sweet.

I need the Lord

2006-08-18T08:37:00.000+08:00

Chapel in school was good today.

There was a group from the island of Samoa on their mission trip to Singapore. Did you know that 97% of the people in Samoa are Christians?? I didn't know that! In fact, from an informal poll done with the JC1s, only less than 20 of them had heard of Samoa Island prior to this visit!

They performed their dances, which were really entertaining. Why? Cos they would make strange noises throughout their dances and watching them dance was really joyful. You could tell that they had this joy in them, and the joy came from within them, from the Lord. There was this dance which they performed which made me tear. It was a dance which praised the Lord, about giving glory to our Redeemer. It wasn't exactly the lyrical kinda dance of the like in "So you think you can dance", but it was emotional enough. How do I know? Cos I wasn't the only soul who felt like tearing. Other teachers were already tearing! I knew God was speaking to me. I need to prioritise.

Even within the stressful period that we might all be going through, there is always an oasis of peace and joy in our Lord Jesus. And I thank God for His grace.

The Lord says, "My grace is sufficient."

And an aside which I plagiarised from Pengy jeijie....
"To log in to the wireless network, please plug in the LAN cable."

Tutors' comments of students

2006-08-15T16:42:00.000+08:00

Possible comments for students from tutors just before parents-teachers-meeting:

"Dreamer. Lost."

"She is not interested in earthly matters. When twilight zone beckons, she should leave this world."

"Brillant! His grades this time round are an anomaly."

"Regular attendance achieved (physically only)"

"Her attention span is but a split second."

"Hardly engages in any intellectual discussions, critical thinking or productive activity. Blank most of the time."

"Hollow. Empty."

Have I mentioned that I love teaching? Heh.

2006-08-15T14:16:00.000+08:00

I love it when students come look for me for consultation or make-up lesson (even if I instructed them to come look for me).

I love it when they seek clarification in class cos it means they are thinking and that they are interested in learning.

I love it when I ask for their attention and they give it to me.

I love it when their faces light up when they understand something I have explained.

I love it when they go away from the lesson having learnt something, and thanking me for it.

I love it when students approach me at an ad hoc basis after lecture just to clarify some issues.

I love it when students are amused by my silly expressions or antics.

I love it when students understand or appreciate my stoopid jokes, and not try to humour me.

I love it when students crack stoopid jokes that make me laugh.

I love it when students tell me they are beginning to like Geography.

I love it when students are happy to be in my class.

I love it when students say "hi" to with a big grin when they see me along the corridors.

I think it makes everything so much easier. I am willing to put in more effort to build on my knowledge so as to better guide students, mark more assignments for their sake, meet up with more students even though it eats into the free time, plan stuff for them including fieldtrips, etc. It makes it all worthwhile when I look forward to class, enjoy the hour and emerge feeling accomplished and happy.

Doctor to patient: "Your x-ray showed a broken rib, but we mended it with Photoshop."

The release of the hungry ghosts...

2006-08-11T10:08:00.000+08:00

You know, you always wanna reward yourself after a trek, especially when you feel a sense of accomplishment. But this time round, I think we were just greedy… hungry ghosts we were! Hahaha!

We arrived in Malacca in a Mercedez cab. High-crass right? But it’s so old I bet the Tungku used it for his campaigning before Independence! Heh. We checked in to our budget hotel before proceeding to savour nonya food. We ordered sambal kangkong, sambal sotong, ayam buah keluak (yum!), assam fish, otah-otah, fried egg (stooped order), soft-shell crab (which was over-fried). Happy. We went to Mahkota for some shopping before 2 of them ended up eating Mac’s and the rest at KFC! My gosh! Hahaha! We proceeded to Bamboo Hut Bistro for some drinks, where we snacked on lots of potatoes and were entertained to no end by a Filippino singer, who sang all-time favourites and had a good sense of humour.

After a good night’s rest at the hotel (we were lucky cos the room beside us had a worm in the tandas and bed bugs), we had simple English breakfast before setting off. We walloped Baba laksa, chendol, pineapple tart samples, chicken rice balls (one each for the girls! Haha!) and kampong chicken of course (though I still insist that Thomson’s chicken is still the best!), A&W (Coney Dog, Large Root beer float with 2 scoops of ice-cream, curly fries, and waffle with ice-cream). And I peng-san-ed. I was done for the day. No more food for me for the rest of the day, but my counterparts still went on to Ramli Burger! Wow. Singaporeans.

I thank God for all His provision and the hands that prepared all the food for us, for providing me with good Christian company who soon became fast friends, and for keeping us all safe and sound throughout the trip.

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes....

2006-08-11T08:18:00.000+08:00

I went on a wonderful trip to Malacca over the National Day holiday, with ODAC. 5 of us teachers, a mentor and ex-ODACers. A full strength of 16

We took the night train (with the sleeping bunk) to Tampin Town. It was a cosy little bed, just snug for me… with privacy from the drawn curtains and I was in my own little duckie world. We arrived at Tampin Town, where the girls went to reccee and found the toilets locked. After a while of snacking and realizing that we really needed to pee, we resorted to asking the train station master for the key, to realize that the toilet was opened all the time! The girls had mistaken the prayer rooms for locked toilets!! Hahaha! The ladies’ had no taps screwed on at the basin (a move to save water maybe??), so we used the gents to wash up. Gender bias!!

We loaded ourselves and our backpacks onto taxis which took us to the foot of Gunung Datuk, where we took a light breakfast from our supplies (Raisin bread’s the best-seller!) before warming up and applying insect repellant. (I recommend Johnson’s and Johnson’s!) Afterward we ventured to conquer Gunung Datuk!

Looking back, it’s one of the best climbs I’ve had. It’s not too long, not too short. Not too easy, not too tough. It’s got its challenges, especially the parts where you have to resort to climbing (my favourite!!). And it’s all worth it cos the view was spectacular! Quite worth it, given the amount of time spent climbing it. The whole climb up only took us 2 ½ hours. An awesome peak overlooking Malaysia. My favourite part was the scaling of the rocks at the peak. It was exhilarating with a tinge of danger and excitement. I love it! I just scampered up the rocks before turning back to help the others up. Then I just stood on top of the huge rock with my hands wide open, welcoming the wind and admiring God’s creation, before I started shivering from the chill.

All the Geography I saw… the weathering processes from observing the rocks both big and small… the mass movement processes both involving consolidated and unconsolidated materials… from fall to flow. Incredible!

The descending part was fun, lots of climbing. The beginning was very fun as I scampered down the slope. However, the momentum was lost when it became really steep with loose rocks. We really did wonder how in the world we managed to climb up! Haha! I think in trekking, one really needs to have the courage to take the first step, cos once you take the first step, you have no choice but to keep going! Experience does count too, cos then you’ll know where to place your footing and how to balance. All in all it was just a thrilling experience.

The outdoors always make me feel at home… trekking with my backpack makes me happy… being in the forest/jungle, amongst the trees, roots and soil gives me a feeling I yearn for. With good company, the trek is just awesome! I know why I’m in ODAC. =)

Don't toy with feelings...

2006-08-11T08:08:00.000+08:00

For national day celebrations at school, we tried to make it more meaningful by havng another mini Service Learning Day. I remained in school, where the Minds children came to play. The others proceeded to become karang guni men/women or went to Toa Payoh to entertain the old folks. Anyway, I just wanna relate an incident.

The Arts classes were all performing for the Minds children, so they were seated in front, facing the entire cohort of Minds children and their student mentors. There was this cheeky fella (from my class) who blew a kiss to this Malay girl. She reciprocated and blew another kiss back to him!! But what was astounding was, she fell in love with him! She was all girly (imagine the fluttering of eyelashes) and started writing "I love you" and drawing hearts in the air! And then she resorted to kissing him, instead of blowing kisses.

My boy was so freaked out! And his classmates, including myself and a fellow teacher, were really amused. But inside of me, I felt really uneasy. I didn't think it was right, but there was nothing else we could have done. And he was only being cheeky, without evil intentions. Things worsened when he went to hide behind the whiteboard, because we thought that if we distracted her, she would get over it soon. However, she got upset and started tearing. She whipped up a tissue from her back as the tears swelled up in her eyes. Then she buried her face in her hands and lowered her head into her legs, looking reallty pitiful.

I couldn't take it anymore. I went over to sit beside her. The objectve being to distract her, make friends and cheer her up. I succeeded to some extent. But she cried not too long after... (no fault of mine!!) She was scared by the loud blast of the music.

Learning points:
1) Always be true in our feelings, and to be sincere to others. Never toy with others' feelings.
2) Be considerate and thoughtful, and be sensitive to others' needs and wants.
3) Minds' children really have mentality of a child. They are innocent and in their own uncorrupted world. In fact, thank God for that because they are blissful in that sense.
4) When dealing with the less fortunate, we should be more enthusiastic and forthcoming in out gestures, actions and words. They appreciate it.

I am still a firm supporter of Service Learning, but only if the kids bother to put in effort and initiative.

Nostalgia

2006-08-07T15:59:00.000+08:00

It was late. The back gate was locked with a thick metal chain coupled with an intimidating padlock. The alternative was to exit from the main gate and make a roundabout tour around PP to arrive at the bus stop.

I was lazy. Like a thief, I surveyed the surroundings for human figures. I spotted one in white. A passerby. Oops! I caught her glance! What an amateur! I acted nonchalantly. When she proceeded with her steps and disappeared from my sight, I surveyed the surroundings again. I took the chance and climbed over the gate, as swift as a dove, even though I was in heels.

Hmmm, all the years of practice in college paid off!

I was in exhilaration! Why? Cos I felt oh-so young again! All the nostalgic feelings came flooding back to me! All those late nights. The peace. The thought of just me and maybe a friend for company while studying into the late hours in school. The returning to school on holidays to find the school locked, but no qualms! The skill was put to good use. =) Good times.

No change in me. I'm young as ever. I'm happy.

Sabotaged!

2006-08-04T08:57:00.000+08:00

I launched a paper plane over the cubicle to N's seat. She picked it up and a cheeky grin emerged on her face.

N: Don't, Daffy! No... no... no!!! Don't do it! *launches the plane over the cubicle to the English department*
D: *Stares at N with her eyes opened wide in disbelief*
N: *Saunters over to the next cubicle to pick up the plane*
N: (From behind the cubicle) I told her not to throw already, but she wouldn't listen! *Saunters back with a satisfied look on her face*

What to do?! Sabotaged.

Quotable quotes

2006-07-28T17:31:00.000+08:00

These are some quotes I came upon when I was playing a game online. Some are also from colleagues' workstations, which I blatantly plagiarised. Haha! Some are pretty retarded though. Hee. Enjoy.

Never argue with an idiot. They bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience. (I like doing that! Hee.)

The art of diplomacy is to say "good dog" while looking for a bigger stick.

The only substitute for bad manners is quick reflexes. (Haha!)

Some days you are the windshield, some days you are the bug. (No, You are always the bug. I am the windshield. Hee.)

If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacement anyway. (Oh well... I agree.)

If at first you don't succeed, give up. No use looking like a fool. (Disclaimer: I do NOT subscribe to this.)

If you can't hear a pin drop, there is something definitely wrong with your bowling.

If you don't like my attitude, I've got others.

A photographic memory is no use if it's never developed. (The pun is quite nice, I thought.)

Never mess up an apology with an excuse. (Yeah I totally buy this.)

Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of cheques.

If you are still reading, it means you are entertained. =) I don't care. There's no other possibility! Hee.

Wild goose chase in Lucky Plaza

2006-07-28T15:16:00.000+08:00

Had an interesting dinner with Meowmeow last night (my supposed mysterious date who's apparently more adorable than others.) at Lucky Plaza.

We explored the entire Lucky Plaza, from Level 1 all the way to Level 5. Not that we were carrying out some NUS survey, neither were we there to interview Filippino maids (still remember when Lumpy told the entire lecture that I couldn's spell "Philippines". Hmph!)... we were there to patronize an Indonesian chicken rice place. But in order to find it, there's an initiation course. You need to wind in and out of the many alleys, take all escalators and peek into every single corner. Then you'll finally get your food. When you find the place lah. (That happens when you don't know the name of the eating place, nor where it is, and the directory isn't extremely helpful in informing you whether it's an eating place or not.) I'm more than willing to oblige though. Heh.

But I must say Lucky Plaza really needs a Geographer to help them plan the layout man... it's so laissez-faire! So much so that the directory has to be in alphabetical order instead of by categories! And different parts of it reminded me of different shopping centres! The Japanese building opposite Cuppage which has lots of Japanese karaokes, Beach Road, Far East plaza, Yang Tze building, etc.

Anyway, we settled down for our dinner. Boy did we work hard for our dinner! Heh. The food was not bad... but it's Indo food lah... (ever since the last time when I was sick in Indo, it kinda turns me off. Heh.) Anyway, the funny thing is that as I was talking... Meowmeow started tearing. (Nope, I didn't make her cry... I wouldn't bear to right? Haha! She probably would never allow me to forget it! *grin*) But neither was she too touched that we finally found the place. The reason was cos the chilli was too hot! Hahaha! But I decided not to make her embarass there and then... cos I'd rather blog it and tell the whole world instead! Hahaha!

But it was a nice night out, short and impromptu as it was.