Happy!

Happy!
Blogger's "Create New Post" is working fine for the second day running. :) I can finally change font colour, add photos and so on. It feels great to be creative again lol. Singnet has finally gotten its act together. FINALLY! :)

Happy!
I managed to buy the last copy of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea DVD from That CD shop for the girls. I had promised them that I will get them the Ponyo DVD. Besides, I also enjoyed watching Ponyo. I love its animation, colours and soundtrack in the movie. The Ponyo DVD I bought is a two-disc special edition that came in a tin box. A Studio Ghibli Collection item. :)

Bad Server Connection

Here is one for laughs.

Stupid ISP of Mine

It is darn frustrating. The New Post is still problematic. At least there is the box for writing now BUT the buttons are still missing. So I CAN'T change font colour or size, CAN'T add photos or videos, CAN'T check spelling, etc. Called Singnet but they said there is no problem. How can there be no problem?! STUPID Singnet!

Pain in the

Knee! Where do you think it would be?! Lol. Started getting pain in my right knee again. :( The last time that happened was in late 2007 and I had no idea how I injured my knee then. Anyway, my right knee started getting creaky just a few days ago but I didn't think much of it. However last night it turned for the worse. I was chasing after my kid and I twisted my knee. Oh boy! The pain was just excruciating! Immediately, my knee started swelling and became very stiff and I had to walk with a slight limp. :(

I should have known when my knee started getting creaky that I would be susceptible to injury. I was taking glucosamine after my knee injury in 2007 and never had pain again. However, I stopped taking it after I finished my last bottle of glucosamine early in the year. Looks like I have to start taking it again and make sure I don't stop. Like a good friend said, "Sista, you have to take it until you die lah". Haha. :P

Funniest Wedding March Ever!!! :D

This wedding entrance march is so NOT your typical church wedding entrance march!!! :D The wedding couple and their wedding party has a wonderful sense of humour!! Way to go!! :) By the way, the video has over 8 million views! I wish them every happiness and may they be always so crazy and fun!

Singnet

... is still wonky. :( Last night, I could create a post with photos and adding text colours but now, "Create Post" is without all its buttons again. Have tried various methods which other Singnet users have suggested to get Blogger working but nothing worked. It is damn frustrating! Maybe I should consider changing my ISP...

Happy 110th Birthday, SCGS

SCGS is celebrating her 110th birthday this year in 2009. :)

The SCGS 110th anniversary dinner was held at Raffles Ballroom, Fairmont Hotel. The Guests of Honour who were the Minister of Education, Dr Ng Eng Hen and his wife, Mrs Ng. Before their arrival at 7:30pm, I met up with some of my former SCGS colleagues. The theme of the anniversary dinner is Peranakan and so the dinner was Peranakan and the dress code was Peranakan/ Batik/ Smart.

Marieann and I before setting off for the dinner

Photo with my former SCGS colleagues

Photo with my former SCGS colleagues

Door gift for the adults

The children's door gifts

Marieann working on her time-filler worksheet

My former 4P student, Lishan :)

After the speeches, the dinner started. It was the first time I am having Peranakan food for a banquet dinner. It was pretty interesting. But unfortunately, I don't take spicy food and most of the dishes for the main course were spicy such as Beef Rendang, Udang Pedas Nanas, Deep Fried Fish Fillet, Ayam Buah Keluak, and Kai Lan Lemak. The only dish which was non-spicy was Nonya Chap Chye. Gosh, I paid $250 per pax and only to have the Chap Chye! :( The children's dishes were non-spicy and I pinched from them haha. :P Sorry didn't take photos of the other dishes.
First time having Peranakan food for banquet dinner: the starters - otak, ngoh hiang, roasted duck, baby octopus, lady fingers

Peranakan dinner: Crabmeat and Fish Maw Soup

During dinner, there were performance items such as dance and choir. We also took photos of the girls.
Marieann and her 1SE classmates


The girls with their Principal

The girls with their form teacher

The girls standing on their chairs to watch the performance

The dinner ended at 10:40pm. By the time we reached home, it was almost 11:30pm. The best moment for me was when the dinner celebration ended with all the SCGS girls, both present and old, singing the school anthem. It really brought me back to my old school days. :)

I am glad for my 10 years of education in SCGS. It has made me the person I am today, a woman of character lol. :) I am proud to be a SCGS girl. I am a true blue SCGS girl. :P (Note: I wore blue for the dinner haha.)

Plans

You can plan all you want but sometimes the best of plans just go awry.

I asked to work from home so that I can do some reading and writing. However, even before I could settle down to write, I received a call from Marieann's school at 10:45am. Marieann was not feeling well. Sigh. So I went to school to get her and brought her to the clinic. It was quite crowded at the clinic so we had to wait. By the time we were done at the clinic, it was 12:30pm. When we reached home, Juliane had just returned home from pre-school too.

With the girls around, there goes my plans to write . :(

Problems with Singnet

Bloggers, such as I, who use Singnet as their ISP, have been having problems creating blog posts. On the "New Post" page, the buttons for font size, font colour, add picture, etc are all missing and the alignment of things are all off! It is really frustrating when I am trying to put up posts. Urgh!

There is a help group on Blogger and it is apparent only Singnet users are facing such a problem. I verified with a good friend who is using Starhub as his ISP and he faces no such problem posting his blog posts. I really hope Singnet can do something about it.

Racial Harmony Day II

Marieann's school celebrated Racial Harmony Day today. Due to the precedent set by her sister, Marieann wore the Korean hanbok to school too.


According to Marieann, there were other school girls who wore the hanbok too so Marieann wasn't alone in her choice of the hanbok lol.

Racial Harmony Day

Today is Racial Harmony Day. Juliane's pre-school encouraged the children to wear traditional clothes to celebrate racial harmony. I took out her Chinese Cheong Sum but she refused to wear it. Instead, she wanted to wear her Korean dress (Hanbok).

Me : You are Chinese, dear, so you have to wear the cheong sum.
Juliane: No, I don't want. I want to wear the Korean dress.
Me : You are CHINESE, not Korean!
Juliane: Teacher never say I must wear Chinese, only say wear traditional clothes.
Me : Er...
Juliane: Korean dress is traditional clothes, right?
Me : Yes but...
Juliane: So I can wear the Korean dress.

Well, she made perfect sense which I couldn't refuted. The pre-school didn't specify that the children had to wear traditional clothes of their ethnic race. So she is logical in her thinking that she can wear the Korean dress as it is a traditional dress.
Hmm, I think I may have a lawyer in the making lol. :P

More Writing...

My PI is back from his overseas trip. We went through the two papers we were going to submit for a conference in the USA 2010. It seemed we still have room to beef things up a little since we have 2000 words limit. Guess it is more writing for me tonight but we are almost there. We should be able to submit by tomorrow. :)

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince

The girls and I went to watch Harry Potter 6 at Lido cineplex. We got the tickets at a very reasonable price, $5 per ticket including popcorn and a drink! :) It was an movie event organised by my good friend's CC committee. Just before the movie started, there was also a lucky draw. Guess what? My ticket was the last one to be drawn! :) My friend commented that I was really lucky lol.

HP6 lasted for about 2.5 hours. It was a long movie lol. But somehow I was a little disappointed. There were certain changes made to the movie adaptation of the book which I know can't be helped as the book was really thick. Overall, I guess the movie is still enjoyable and exciting at some parts and it is still Harry Potter. :)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Theatrical Trailer 2 Movies & TV SPIKE.com

After the movie, we had lunch at Hoshigaoka Japanese Restaurant. We had the weekend set lunches. The food was not bad and definitely value for money (all under $15). :)

First H1N1 Death

Oh dear, we have our first H1N1 flu related death this afternoon in Singapore. :( Let's hope we don't hear any more such bad news...

Transformers 2 Song: New Divide by Linkin Park

I think this is one of the better music videos made of Linkin Park's new theme song, New Divide in Transformers 2. It has clips from both Transformers movies and the video quality is really good! A great find for any Transformers fans. :)

Relief!

The work stuff I have been waiting for has come through the email. Best of all, the conference paper submission deadline has been extended another week to 22 July 11:59pm Pacific time. Now, we have extra time to refine the work. :)

Phew! I am so relieved. :)

Panic!

I am still waiting for something to come through the email. I have to submit them to a conference and the deadline is 15 July 11:59pm Pacific time. Although technically I still have a couple of hours as Singapore is several hours ahead of USA, I much prefer to receive them earlier and submit them NOT at the last minute.

Panic! Waiting. Panic!

A Struggle

Struggling to write a paper for a conference.
Struggling to make it a succinct piece.
Struggling to meet the deadline.
Struggling to think clearly.
Struggling to not panic.
Struggling...
:(

What Frozen Treat Are You?

Another Blogthing quiz. :) My responses in blue.

You Are a Dipped Cone

You are dramatic, deep, and even demanding. Is it?? Haha. If you're going to do dessert, you're going to go all out with something super rich. Having dessert? Might as well go for it and be as sinful as possible! Lol. :P People might be surprised to know that you worry about how you're perceived. Well, who is completely NOT worried about how they are being perceived by others? You've got an image to keep up, and you don't ever want to appear weak. Of course, I am Chili Padi. Hahaha. :P

What Frozen Treat Are You?

A Courageous Girl

I have a girl who most probably would be in Gryffindor House if there is a wizarding world like Harry Potter's that exists along side our world. :)

We brought Marieann for her lesson. At the condo, the two lifts could only be activated by the owners for the guests to use. While waiting for the teacher to buzz us in (activate the lift for us), some folks exited from one of the lifts. Before Marieann and I could react, Juliane ran into the lift and the lift doors promptly closed. Both Marieann and I were stumped. The lift started ascending all the way to the 15th floor. Beginning to panic a little, I asked Marieann to take the other lift up to the teacher's apartment on the 6th floor while I waited for Juliane to come down again. When the lift Juliane was in opened its doors, there was no Juliane! I took it up to the 6th floor and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I saw Juliane's pink Crocs outside the door of the teacher's apartment. Marieann and Juliane were recounting to the teacher and the other students what had happened when I entered the apartment. The teacher thought Juliane was really brave. Juliane sure didn't look like she was scared too. She later said there was nothing to be scared. She just pressed 6th floor when the lift was going down from the 15th floor.

Frankly speaking, I was a little panicky when Juliane was "swallowed up" by the lift. I told her off for dashing into the lift like that and got her to promise me not to do that again. But I am really proud of her too, for being so brave. I am really glad that she is able to use her wits and not panic. :)

Close Call

I was going home from the food court at Botanic Gardens in the evening. While crossing the road during the pedestrian GREEN light, a car came turning from the side road onto the road I was crossing. Now I totally know what it's like to be a deer caught in the headlights! I could see the car coming but I couldn't move. I think the driver was rushing to beat the red light and was rushing to beat me before I could cross the road. I could see he was alarmed when he realised we were on a collision course. Thank goodness, he was able to brake in time! His car stopped less than a metre away from me. He knew he was at fault and offered his apologies.

My heart has never worked as hard as it did this evening. It was pounding so fast and hard. After I had crossed the road, I realised that I was actually quite shaken up as I was trembling away.

It was too damn close a call.

Papers

I have two papers which I will be writing with my PI. We are trying to submit them for a conference in the USA next year. If time permits, I may want to submit a paper on my PhD as well. So that will be 3 papers that I have to work on. The deadline for paper submission is 15 July. You think I have enough time to write 3 papers before then?? Lol. Wish me luck! :P

Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child

I have finished reading Terminal Freeze. :) Although it is predictable in the usual style of Child lol, it is still really engaging. I just couldn't stop reading the book, one chapter after another, wanting to know what happens next lol.

Terminal Freeze tells of a group of scientists who found something astonishing up in the Arctic Circle. But the find was not what they thought and things started to go wrong... Child combined science and Native American mythology to great effect and makes Terminal Freeze a chilling thriller. No puns intended lol. :P

If you like Relic, you will enjoy reading Terminal Freeze. :)

Students' Reactions

It has been about one and a half weeks since schools reopened and the precautionary measures being put in place in schools.

I asked my counsellees how they felt the H1N1 flu has changed their lives. Some felt it is troublesome because they have to take temperature twice a day everyday. Some felt it is fun because they can miss parts of their lessons. Some felt it is annoying because they miss parts of their favourite lessons. Some felt indifferent. But all felt that they are now much more aware of personal hygiene.

See, as I said before, there is some good when something like H1N1 comes along... :)

Falling

into place... the new project is. :)

1. We have hired the RAs, some of whom have started work.
2. The various instruments to be used in the project are coming along.
3. Our project partner is compiling the list of schools, teachers and students.

I am feeling more relaxed now that things are falling into place for the project. But at the same time, I am also a little stressed as I am entrusted with more responsibility for this project. :P

1111

4D* number? Lol. No, that is the total number of confirmed cases of Influenza A (H1N1) as of today in Singapore. More than half of the cases were local cases.

I think sometimes it is good that something like H1N1 comes along. Hear me out first before you want my blood. I am not being evil here. :P H1N1 has created in people the awareness on how the disease is spread and it has also resulted in people being more socially responsible. I tended to notice more people wearing masks now-a-days. Of course the cynic would say those people are afraid of catching H1N1 so they don the mask. However, it could also be said that they aren't well and are donning masks to protect others. :) I also noticed more people washing their hands longer and more carefully in the washrooms and I also observed more people using hand sanitizers.

See, there is some good. :)

*In Singapore, 4D is a game whereby a person picks a lucky 4-digit (4D) number from 0000 to 9999 and if the number matches any of the 23 4-digit numbers drawn, the person wins a prize.

Pleasure and Work

Marieann has a birthday party to attend at Great World City from 1 to 3pm. We therefore decided to have lunch at Kenny Rogers. It was nice to have some good, old-fashion comfort food such as macaroni and cheese, potato salad, mashed potato, chicken soup, etc. :) After lunch, we left Marieann at the party while we browsed around in the shops.

Marieann, with her make-over, at her friend's make-over birthday party

At 3pm, the girls' father took Marieann to her lesson and brought Juliane home while I stayed on at Coffee Bean to do some work. I needed some peace and quiet to gather my thoughts lol. I could have worked longer but was beginning to feel a little chilled. :( Close to 6pm, the girls' father came to pick me up after picking up Marieann from her lesson.

I might just do a bit more work tonight or maybe I should just watch tv lol.

Flight Safety

How many of us actually pay attention to the flight safety video that is played just before the plane takes off? Now be honest. The truth is: very few of us do. (Well, I have travelled so often that I have actually memorised it and that's the truth lol. :P)

Air New Zealand has created a flight safety video for its domestic flights, showing the bare essentials of flight safety with nothing to hide, literally! Lol. :P Enjoy a good laugh while listening to the flight safety message.

Reading

Started reading one of my favourite genre again - thriller.

There is a new book by Lincoln Child, Terminal Freeze. So far, it has been pretty engaging. :) Give me another day, I should be finished with it. Yes, yes, I know, I should be writing instead of reading lol. But hey, it's the weekend, let me relax ok? Hahaha. :P

Writing

Have started writing again. Wrote about 500 words today. Not a lot but enough. If I can continue with this momentum and amount of writing per day for a week, ...

Water Beauties

My favourite flowers that grow in the water.