Belated Birthday Celebration

A belated Birthday present for Juliane. Took her to watch a movie of her choice. I was surprised by it, not the theme but by the choice of language the movie was in! Guess what we watched! :D My mother who is a Taiwanese would be pleased to know there is hope. 

Took Juliane to lunch at Shashlik

Must think twice next time before watching a teenage romance comedy with your teenage. Between the two of us, we used up a pack of tissue during the sob sob scenes. "Fall in Love at First Kiss", a Taiwanese remake of the Japanese manga "Itazura na Kiss" is a refreshing departure from my usual genre of movies. :)

Congrats, Marieann!

Marieann received her EAGLES (LEADERSHIP) award this morning at Moulmein-Cairnhill Edusave Awards Presentation Ceremony. I am really proud of her! 

She initially wanted to skip the ceremony because she was shy. But I insisted that she attends the ceremony as it is an acknowledgement of her achievement and skills as a leader. It is a celebration. After the ceremony, I could see that Marieann was happy to have attended it. 

Early Birthday Surprise

A surprise from my colleagues and friends! 

Thank you!

Retreat, Celebration and Farewell

It's timely for a mini-celebration with my RAs as we accomplished milestones within two of my projects - completion of data collection and completion of preliminary data analysis. 
I booked the four of us for a soap-making workshop at Soap Ministry. It is nice to be away from the office for a while and it is great for team-building and bonding as well, not that we need it much lol. 

All excited to start our soap making!

Hard at work trying to blend two essential oils

Going nuts blending scents

Cheryl pouring her soap mixture into the molds

A wefie while waiting for the soaps to harden

Our own customised soaps

We had lots of fun at the soap-making workshop. It was "difficult" too as we had to make decisions on what herb, what essential oil and what molds to use. We asked plenty of questions and we learnt lots too about the different herbs and essential oils and their benefits.
Besides it being a celebration of hard work, it is also a celebration of friendship and farewell lunch for Cheryl. We had it at our favourite Swensens.

Our favourite Earthquake sundae! 

Thank you, Cheryl for being part of our team. It has been a blast and we welcome you back anytime! We wish you all the best. Keep in touch! :)

Early Birthday Celebration

As Juliane will be leaving for her school trip to Malacca from 1-3 March 2017, we celebrated her birthday a day earlier with her favourite cakes - mango mousse and black forest (they are small cakes lol). 

Surprise Birthday Celebration

We planned a surprise birthday celebration for our friend and colleague, Liyana. It was not easy trying to get her to go to the chill room where we have lay out the birthday cake and pressies! I had to trick her that I needed her help to remove some stuff from the room. Haha!
Happy Birthday in advance, Liyana! May all your wishes come true! 

My Happy Birthday Celebration 2016

I saw this on Google page and thought it is the coolest thing I have ever seen haha. 

I couldn't take leave today as I had to teach my last class of my first MLS038 course. It was a blast. A great bunch of KPs, great teachers with great sense of humour! :D I have learnt lots from them and I will miss them - their jokes, their experiences, their wisdom. I wish them all the best when they return to school. Yes, it is fun teaching on my birthday, the teachers sang me a birthday song! :)

I went home to 2 birthday cakes! I thought the girls would be too lazy to do anything for my birthday so I bought a cake for myself haha. Ended up the girls got me a cake too. :D 

I had a great birthday! Thank you to all my friends, my students, my family and my colleagues for their birthday wishes (both in person and on Facebook)! :) 

What a Birthday SURPRISE 2016!

I am really blessed with good friends and colleagues! They threw me a surprise birthday celebration, even though it is two day early! :P Never have I been more surprised to walk into a room full of people shouting, "Surprise! Happy Birthday!". (There were supposed to be more people but some had to go for data collection. I am touched.)  

Thank you for the wonderful birthday surprise! Thank you for the lovely presents, especially the notes that each of you have taken time to write, all 23 notes. I really enjoyed reading them. 

Post-it pads and an album full of birthday wishes/ notes

Some of the lovely notes that my friends and colleagues have written me

Thank you, my friends!! Thank you for all your friendship and love. Never realised that I have so much social capital at my workplace haha :P 

Annual Hari Raya Gathering

Every year, Rahidah would invite my family over to her place for Hari Raya which my girls really look forward to. Unfortunately this year, when she invited us, I had to go away for my study trip on the same day. Instead of just going with it, Rahidah intentionally set aside another day specially for us, including having her mother prepare the curry chicken (less spicy for us)! I am really touched by Rahidah's gesture.

First Month's Celebration

It has been a while since we have family or friends who have babies. :) It is such a pleasure to receive the first month celebration box from the son and daughter-in-law of a close family friend. 

Congrats!

Early Birthday Celebration

As Juliane's 12th birthday falls on a weekday, 1 March Tuesday, my mother decided to celebrate it earlier today on a Saturday with a sumptuous meal of braised duck (special request by Juliane).

Juliane's favourite Braised Duck cooked with love by my mother

Juliane's favourite cake: Blackforest Cake

My (Surprised!) Birthday Celebration 2015

Today is my birthday. It is the first time in 14 years that I didn't take leave on my birthday because I was giving a guest lecture on Student Self-Assessment from 1:30pm - 4:30pm. It was work but very enjoyable because I was talking about my research interest. :) 
As I am usually not in office on my birthday, I was really surprised when my colleagues and friends gave me a birthday surprise, complete with cake and pressies!! :) :) Thank you!! I am really touched.

My lovely colleagues and friends who gave me a birthday surprise! :)

Since the guest lecture ended well, I decided to have dinner at a Korean restaurant as a treat and also because I was craving for Korean food haha. :P

Love Korean Banchan (side dishes)

End off with ice cream! :)

Celebrating with my family 

Birthday cake

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes that were sent to me by my students, my friends and my family!! Thank you to all of you for making my (working) birthday special!!