Denver, Here I Come

Another 6 hours, I will be in the plane departing from Terminal 3, Changi Airport. :)

Denver is 15 hours behind Singapore. I will try to update my blog as regularly as I can so that my girls can see what I do in Denver, what I see in Denver and what I eat in Denver lol.

I should try to sleep soon. I have to leave for the airport at 4:30am. Hope I wake up on time lol. :P

Leaving Soon

I will be off to Denver tomorrow morning, taking the 7:10am United Airlines flight. I am packed (I think lol). I have checked in online. I have instructed my girls on what to do (and what NOT to do) when I am not at home.

I am looking forward to Denver but somehow I don't feel very excited (yet) lol. Perhaps I am worried about Marieann and her exams. Perhaps I am worried about the cold weather in Denver. Perhaps I am worrying for nothing lol.

Last Minute Prep

I booked my transportation from DIA to Downtown Denver. What I want to do is to get to my accommodation as soon as possible once I get into Denver so that I can rest.
I also booked myself on a tour trip up to Rocky Mountains. What I want to do is to see Rocky Mountains on a good day so that I can take nice photos.

Grandma

My mother has been in contact with her family in Taiwan every night with regards to my grandma's condition. Tonight, we finally received some good news. My grandmother, although still in a coma, reacted to stimulus. We are pretty relieved but we shall continue to pray that she recovers soon.

Wintery Weather

I finally started to pack my luggage. I have been putting it off as I was hoping the weather in Denver was going to turn warm! Alas, no such luck. The temperature is still pretty cool in Denver for late April and early May, not hitting any higher than 20C, mostly in the mid 10s region, and the low can be under 5C. On Thursday, the weather forecast says it is going to be scattered thunderstorms in Denver and the temperature is going to hit below 10C for the max temperature! *Shivers* SHIVERS* :(

In goes all my winter clothing and there goes all the extra luggage space for my shopping. :(

Worry

I think I am most worried about Marieann when I am away. She will be having exams during the week I am away and the week immediately after I return. Somehow she is still not very concerned about exams. :S Not sure if that is good or bad. Good for her in the sense she is still not perturbed by the exam stress. Bad for me in the sense I am greatly stressed and I am not even the one taking the exams! Sigh, the kiasu parent syndrome rearing its ugly head in me again :(

Rapport

Most of my counsellees are new, started with some of them at the beginning of the year and some of them, I have "inherited" recently as the FTSC has left. Rapport building is important in counselling. Before you can go on to counsel the counsellees, they need to trust you. I often like to spend a few sessions on building rapport with my counsellees first before we discuss or work on their issues together.

I think I have managed to build up rapport with most of the counsellees as they were kind of disappointed that I would be away for 2 weeks due to the AERA conference. Sorry. :(

Denver Prep II

I will be off to Denver in a week's time. So soon. Not ready yet lol. It is like suddenly there is a lot to do at work, a lot to prepare for the conference, a lot of homework to supervise at home... I am just BUSY. :( I finally started preparing my presentation slides... Have to book for my transportation in Denver upon arrival too...

Thunderstorm

This evening's thunderstorm is possibly one of the worst thunderstorms I have encountered this year. I have never heard thunder so loud. It was peal of thunder after another. The windows were rattling and the sound of thunder was just reverberating through the apartment. It was actually quite scary. :(

Okonomiyaki Botejyu

While waiting to pick up Marieann from her lesson at 3pm, we went to Botejyu for a late lunch. We shared a Moonlight Special Okonomiyaki ($14.80): savoury pancake with pork, squid, prawn and sunny side up egg, a Asari Yaki-soba ($11.80) and desserts: Ice Cream Pancake ($4.80) and Hokkaido Milk Pudding ($4.80).





The okonomiya and yaki-soba were quite good, could be I was really hungry. Haha. Juliane enjoyed the yaki-soba. I thought the milk pudding was fantastic but Juliane preferred the ice cream pancake lol.

Life and Death

When there is life, there is also death and vice verse. Life and death are two sides of the same coin.

*Life*
I was woken up by shouts of "I have babies!" from Juliane early in the morning. I dragged myself out of bed to see what the din was all about. To my great surprise, it is really "I have babies!". There are 8 little baby guppies swimming in Juliane's fish tank! Apparently, there were fish eggs on the aquatic plant. The girls were really excited to see the baby guppies. The miracle of Life.

*Death*
In the evening, we had some bad news from Taiwan. My 86 years old maternal grandmother is in a coma in ICU. She had choked on her lunch and not knowing, my 3rd uncle fed her some more which aggravated the whole situation. To make things worse, they decided to take her to the hospital rather than wait for the ambulance, thinking it would be faster. Alas, it was the wrong decision. When my grandmother arrived at the hospital, she had already stopped breathing. The A&E managed to resuscitate my grandmother but she is now in a coma. The doctors are not optimistic about her chances... Sigh... Now it is a waiting game. I hope my grandmother can pull through.

Pet Owner

Both Marieann and Juliane are now proud owners of guppies. :) The grandparents took Marieann to buy the guppies in the morning as Marieann has no school today (SCGS Sports Day and P1-3 are not required to attend). The aquarium uncle gave Marieann instructions on how to care for the guppies. He also gave them each girl a stalk of aquatic plant for free! That's nice of him. :)

The girls each have a fish tank full of 2 guppies! Haha. :P I didn't want to buy more than 2 guppies each for them because I didn't want more lives to be sacrificed unnecessarily, should the girls not know how to take care of their guppies. I don't want to have guppies haunting me haha. :P

Both sisters have not stopped looking at their guppies nor have they stopped talking about them. I hope they will take good care of their guppies. :)

Book Chapter

I am co-writing a book chapter with my boss and another researcher. My first time! Really excited. :) Writing a chapter for a book is very different from being a co-editor for a book. My former boss gave me the opportunity to be a co-editor for a book. It seemed a relatively easier job as I only needed to edit the various chapters and send back to the authors for amendments/ revisions. Now being the co-author, there is a lot more work to do. :P

Swimming Birthday Party

Marieann's classmate, Hannah had her birthday celebration at Singapore Island Country Club. Both Marieann and Juliane were invited to the birthday party. :) It was really nice of Hannah's mother, Sharon to invite Juliane as well. Thanks, Sharon. Since it was a school day, most of the girls departed for the party immediately after school. Thanks to another parent, Shawn who gave Marieann a lift to SICC. After my counselling, I went home to pick up Juliane for the party.

This is the first time the girls were invited to a swimming birthday party. The girls got a good work out as well as having lots of fun. :) They have recently taken to swimming or rather playing in the pool lol. The children were in the pool for almost 1.5 hours. It was a rather hot day but being in the pool, the children didn't feel the heat. :P I happened to meet a close family friend at the pool and we spent some time chatting away while keeping an eye out on our children in the pool. Around 4:30-5pm, it was time for the birthday song and birthday cake. :)


The girls were really happy to attend Hannah's birthday party and definitely enjoyed themselves very much. Both of them asked me if they could attend more of such swimming birthday parties. Well, only if you are invited to one again! Haha.

Farewells

April seems to be a month of farewells. :( Just within the first half of the month, we have 3 colleagues leaving. :(

Carol has been around for almost as long as I have been. Although we worked in different projects, we have had chances to interact. :) With her leaving, it reminds me of how long I have been here... :(
Aida happens to be the wife of my former MOE HQ colleague. Imagine our surprise when we first saw each other at work. :) The chats we had were really funny. With her leaving, one less person to laugh with... :(
Terrence is in IT and he has always been really helpful with my IT problems. Yes, he is one of those IT people who knows me as "Auntie" haha. Thanks for all your help. With him leaving, I better pray hard for no IT problems... :(

Although it is sad to see them go, I wish Carol, Aida and Terrence all the best in their future. Take care and keep in touch. :)

Baby No. 3

NO, not me haha. In UK, my brother and my sister-in-law are expecting Baby number 3 in early October. My nephews are pretty excited about the baby. My mother tried asking them if they wanted a baby sister or baby brother. All the two boys said were, "Not yet, not yet". Haha. :D

Congrats, YM and Dinh. Take care, Dinh. Keep us posted with news, ok? :)

Fishes

For some reason, Marieann suddenly wanted to keep fishes as pet. I think it could be because there was a game store at the carnival yesterday that allowed you to keep the fishes that you caught within a minute and Marieann saw her good friend bringing home some fishes.

I made an agreement with her. If she could learn her spelling and got everything correct, I would buy her some fishes. She really got everything correct so I had to keep my word. However, the two aquariums that we went to were already closed. We will go back on another day, the coming Friday perhaps.

SCGS Carnival 2010

Today is the SC-Cares Carnival 2010. SCGS organised the carnival to raise funds for a new sports building. It started pouring really heavily in the morning just before we set off for the carnival which was held at the school grounds. I met my friend and also a former SCGS colleague, Carolyn at 10am. We were slightly late lol.

Marieann joined her class and went on rounds with her classmates to sell their cookies and lollies. I bought cookies from Marieann before they went off to sell their wares lol. My friend and I supported our former SCGS colleagues by buying from their class stores. We also had a great time catching up with our former SCGS colleagues. :) I think Juliane was bored just following us around until she hit the game stores haha. I played at one of the game stores too lol. I managed to win a red soft toy monkey. It was actually a big soft toy bulldog but it looked really ugly so I asked to exchange for the smaller, cuter prize which was the monkey. :) Juliane really liked it and had it hanging around her neck as she walked around the carnival. I met a former student too, Deborah. It was nice to see her there as well as some of my SCGS classmates.

At 2pm, we watched Rice, the play at the Khoo Auditorium. The girls really enjoyed the play. My friend gave us a lift home after the play. We were home by 3:30pm. It was a fun day but exhausting as we were on our feet for most part of the day except during the 1 hour play.

The girls before the play started

Our goodies from the carnival. We managed to get another green soft toy monkey. :)

But the fun didn't end there. Just as we reached home, my friend invited my girls over to their condo for a swim. I was amazed at how the girls had so much energy in them to go on for a swim and playing Xbox games at my friend's place!

Denver Checklist

1. Apply ESTA
2. Apply travel insurance
3. Buy US currency
4. Buy warmers (heat packs)
5. Plan daily conference schedule
6. Plan sight-seeing trips
7. Shopping lists from family and friends
8. Upload conference papers

All done except for 2 and 7. Soon. :)

Proud Moments

Marieann
She came home from school and showed us a notebook that she received from her teacher. Marieann told us the notebook is a first prize present. First prize? Huh? First prize for what? She then sheepishly told us that she got the first prize for her Chinese Speech and Drama class. It seemed that not many from her class took part in the Chinese recitation competition. She showed us a little bit of what she did at the recitation before she bashfully said she had forgotten and went to bed. I am very surprised by Marieann as she has never shown any interest in Chinese. Winning something, even if it is a simple recitation may spark her interest in Chinese. :) I am proud of you, Marieann. :) I hope you keep up your interest in Chinese.

Juliane
I received an odd sms on my handphone from a strange number.
"Mama on SCHOOL NO FRIDAY is MMI Yes or on"
After a while, I figured it out and I laughed. I got home and asked Juliane if she did anything today. She laughed and said that she sent me an sms using the maid's handphone. I doubted that she sent the sms on her own to which she protested most strongly. The maid confirmed that Juliane sent the sms on her own. I am amazed that Juliane is so IT-savvy. I am proud of you, Juliane. :)
Oh, you managed to figure out what she wrote? It should have been "Mama no MMI school on Friday yes or no" lol.