The Complex Life of an Singaporean Mummy/Wife trying to raise Eurasian Canadian Children

February 16, 2008

My phone got stolen just 30mins ago .... I had just finished
watching a movie with Darcy at GV Yishun and we stopped at the McDonalds at
Northpoint for a quick shake. Less than 30secs after leaving the dessert counter
and got to the KFC by Swenson's (about 15m away) that I didn't have my phone in
my bag. After a quick search of the bag I realized it was not there and quickly
ran back to the McDs counter to see if it was there. When I got there and asked
the lady behind the counter all I got was a quick 'no' to the question 'did you
see a little pouch here just now?'. I chased down the 6 malay boys (about 16-18
years old) that were behind me at the counter and asked them if they had seen a
phone at the counter. They all shook their heads no and continued out the door
eating their ice cream. We walked out after them and they kept looking back at
us even after they had crossed the huge road junction to Yishun MRT station...
that got me really suspicious. All this time Darcy was trying to call my phone
and it rang repeatedly but no one was picking up. I told Darcy to run after the
boys to ask them again while I returned to the McDs counter to confirm with the
lady who served me if those 6 boys were the ones she served after me. After much
searching of the Northpoint area plus the entire Yishun MRT station and platform
up above, plus the entire pathway out of the Yishun area we came to the
conclusion that the phone had been stolen and was turned off and not to be
returned again. So yeah that is the main gist of it... my line has been
suspended and will be going out tomorrow to file a police report and to look for
a new phone and get my replacement SIM card.
- 9:29 am
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February 14, 2008

Valentine's With Hubbie

Just a quiet dinner with Hubbie at Shashlik and a dessert treat at MacDonald's for hot fudge sundaes for a simple, quiet Valentine's Day. I guess since we never did have big special plans for all the Valentine's Days that have passed that i almost didn't know what to plan or do for our first 14th of February together in-person. So a nice quiet evening just enjoying each other's company is the best way to celebrate the day. *smile*

Hubbie enjoying his steak.

I had peanuts on my hot fudge sundae while Hubbie had rainbow jimmies.

*heehee* Self-indulgence.

Happy Couple....

Hubbie bought me these pair of cat earrings that i was eyeing on from Bits and Pieces but i already had something similar that i bought back in 2005 from my trip to Canada so i didn't get it. I later found out that Liza actually knew what i was getting for Vday cos Hubbie had to ask her about the place that we saw the earrings at because he had forgotten the name of the store. *heehee*

Here's to many more Valentine's Day to come and everyday be a Valentine's Day...
- 9:24 am
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February 8, 2008

CNY Eve
It was only half-day for us in school for Part 1 of the Chinese New Year celebrations and children came decked in their traditional CNY outfits (or any 'party' clothes as the kids like to call it). This would be the preview session of what their parents will get to view this coming Monday but performed for their fellow peers. My excitement from the day, or any day where the children get to come in outfits other than their uniforms, are the photo ops that are available to us. It was a pretty fun day where the Nursery upstaged the older kids with their lion dance performance.... Teacher Zalila spoil market lah....

I gave all the kids in both classes a red packet each with two chocolate ingots. It's a lil tradition we have for the kids in place of giving cash. It would pretty much burn a hole in my pocket to give cash out to them... ALL 38 of them. Not to mention if i had wanted to give out cash i couldn't bear to leave out my Nursery kids from last year so it would have been about 55 60 kids.

At the end of the performances, which also saw guests from the PPIS childcare coming over to visit and join in the celebrations with us, we had a lil celebration brunch snack of putu mayam (courtesy of Liza) and donuts from Munchy Donuts which Darcy helped me pick up.

The afternoon was spent taking a nap to recharge myself followed by a huge sweeping, wiping, mopping and cleaning session of the house with Darcy's help. Reunion dinner for the two of us was a simple dish of pasta carbonara i had cooked. The dish was tasty but i had added too much parmasen cheese and too little cream so it was quite a sticky glob. However, Darcy liked it so that was al that mattered.

We also headed out at around 9pm to go catch the CNY Fireworks that were scheduled every night from the 5th to the 8th of Feb. Figured if this was my first time in almost 10 years spending CNY in Singapore i might as well go do something i have always wanted to do during CNY but had lil chance to. Sides CNY celebration with the extended family and relatives in Malaysia has always been loud and rowdy (in a good way since i have about 27 cousins from my dad's side) so being in the crowd doesn't really phase me. HOWEVER, what i really don't understand and probably never do are people who come in 30mins before the fireworks are supposed to be fired and decide that they have every right to jostle into whatever crack, nook and space IN BETWEEN you and your hubbie to get a better view for themselves. LIKE HELLO??! You want to have a good view you come early to get a spot. I also can never understand why someone can stand over a complete stranger while they are sitting down to rest while waiting for the fireworks. Not only that they had the audacity to have a child squeeze through the front and almost knocked my tripod over and my camera into the river below me. Ugh.... i can never never understand these people. Not apologetic or embarassed with the blatant arrogance that they have every right to butt into your space even though i had been standing there for the last 2 hours.

I only managed 4 shots of fairly decent shots... or at least shots that i felt i could post and show the world.... too much smoke towards the end of the fireworks session and i had to start reduce my shutter speed to get some of the decent shots. So here they are...
- 10:11 pm
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January 27, 2008

Week 4 is over...

The end of week 4 and i am beginning to feel the added pressure of preparing the kids for Primary 1 not to mention that 2 days out of the week are taken for 2nd language. I have not been in this situation before since the last 1.5 years i have been taking the Nursery class and since there is no 2nd language for that level i had the kids everyday of the week except for the occasional breaks to do admin work or work on the class portfolio. So to have only 3 full days with the kids is leaving me and my partner almost gasping for air. Teaching the older kids is also more challenging since they are at the age where they will want a reason for being able or not able to do anything they want. In addition, they have started to push and test the limits and in some cases really test my patience. Though as i have always said, the rewards and satisfaction that comes with this job doesn't take long to show itself. The children also always bring a smile to my face even though they have their off moments that drives me nuts but they are still kids and i still love them to bits.

Here is one photo i would like to share with everyone that really made my week... This is what our darling KoKo wrote when i was refreshing the kids spelling of the numeric words for #6-#10. I basically said to the class : "Write the numeric words for #6 to #10. That is #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10."

I had such a good laugh after she handed me her paper when she was done. *heehee*
- 9:09 am
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January 21, 2008

This really applies to Me

About 1 1/2 weeks ago, i read this lil write up titled "5 Reasons to Take Your Camera Everywhere in 2008" and i turned to Hubbie and exclaimed "This is what i do everyday!". The very next day, i arrived to work early and had walked to the nearest sink in the staff room to colour my face and saw this...

Cute eh?

Glad i do take my camera everywhere.

January 20, 2008

Feeling Nostalgic

Yesterday, i walked the grounds of NP for the first time since graduating almost 7 years ago. It was NP's Open House weekend and Mala was running the operation and PR side of things now that she is working in the corp. comms. dept for NP. She invited us back just to visit and see how NP has changed over the years and i decided that it would be nice that Hubbie would have the chance to see the school i studied in (along with the time i called him in between classes or chatted with him online in one of the computer labs when we had a break).

When we got off the bus at NP the bus stop definitely did not look like
the one i was familiar with ... there was also a water wall at the
entrance pathway... wow things have changed in 7 years haven't they?
However, the good old atrium still looks like it did back in 2001 which
brought back lots of memories of me and the girls hanging out there
having a sandwich from the deli, having project meetings, filming
scenes for our TV 1 Production projects.... yup, was definitely feeling
nostalgic. Unfortunately, the MCM area now houses the Engineering faculty so i couldn't show Hubbie all the labs and lecture theatres and tutorial classrooms i called home for three years. *POUT* Why oh why did they have to move FMS up a hill???? Finally met up with Mala where she showed us around a bit and this new chill out NP named "OurSpace@72" and where the MCM block was. Hubbie and I ended up on the MCM guided tour which was kinda gate crashed by Ruth and she kept interrupting the poor boy who was clearly getting annoyed. Had to shush Ruth up and remind her that he is the one who is giving the tour...had to do this a couple of times too. Anyways, finally had to leave Hubbie to finish the rest guided tour when Qinz, Deb, Yani and Azhar joined us and we trooped down to the lecturers' office to see if anyone of our lecturers were still around. .... Nope... office was empty. We headed back to OurSpace@72 to catch up with Mala but was told she was doing a guided tour herself... so we sat down munching on our free donuts before heading back to the atrium to catch Plain Sunset performance.

Cute kid munching on her donut in the area around OurSpace@72

It was nice to hang
out with the girls for the day and i was glad Hubbie came along as
well. Definitely was a good day to sit down and talk about our times in
NP and all the memories that we had shared. So it was fitting that we
had dinner at KAP's McDs which was one of our regular hang out spots
when we had a long break in between classes, another meetup area for
project meetings or a place to simply end a long day in school.

You can see more pics of the day that Qinz took over at her flickr spot.
- 7:12 am
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January 7, 2008

Dance Moves for the Kids

One of my favourite things to do and teach my kids are clean bubblegum kids friendly pop songs. This year's repertoire includes popular tunes from Grease, The Sound of Music, Various Walt Disney Movies, Bee Gees and S Club 7. They seem to particularly like S Club 7's Reach (for the Stars) and i have spent the last few days watching the MTV and live stage performance clips on Youtube just to learn the choreography to teach them. I can't expect them to master the whole choreography step for step so i am just incorporating some of the more interesting moves to challenge the kids and at the same time improvising my own moves into the dance steps. *heehee* I also showed some snippits from Grease and they seemed to find what they see very amusing. I did tell them that this is my generation's High School Musical back when i was growing up. Can't wait to see them following the dance steps tomorrow during Music and Movement session!

PS: My tuition kid gave me a very belated xmas and new year's gift tonite after my session with him. It was a wonderful surprise and i am very touched by the gesture... I love my job... i really do.

January 5, 2008

1 of 52

It's the end of Week 1 and well ... so far so good i guess. I miss the Nursery kids from last year even though i am taking the first batch of Nursery kids i thought back in 2006 for K2s this year.Still, after having them for the whole of last year and watching them grow before my very eyes it is hard not to get attach to them. Though, kids are good at one thing... they know who their teachers are for the year so their 'loyalty' is transferred to the new teachers without any baggage i guess. However, i love my kids all the same and even though i have had my K2s for only 3 days they have surprised me tremendously by how much they know. I have to see about giving some of the boys in the class more verbal exposure and experience as they are the quiet ones and will not speak unless they are spoken to. Taking the older kids do have its advantages as they are familiar to the routine and know what is generally expected of them. The Nursery kids however are still very new to their new environment and some seek attention by bawling their eyes out. There are a handful of brave ones who even though might not speak English fluently but understand what you are trying to say to them. It has been rough on the Nursery teachers but this phase will eventually pass and once the kids settle down they will be able to start bonding with them.

I have to start planning the kids drama and dance for the year end graduation concert.... am going to try the kids out on writing fractured rhymes starting with "Hey Diddle Diddle". I will see how far they can go with this lil project so that at the end of the day they don't act out a story from a chosen storybook or written by the teachers. I would like them to write out their own story to be acted out by them. So... lets see how this will go.

In the meantime, i have taken time today to complete a couple of CNY ATCs for the next coming ATC meet-up on Thursday. Hopefully one of them will be worthy of the exchange i will be making with Uncle Richard of his batik inspired ATCs.

January 1, 2008

Ending 2007 Welcoming 2008

Well, Hubbie and I ended the year of 2007 with a very sumptuous Japanese meal at Ikoi restaurant located at Hotel Miramar with Mala and Ruth.

This sashimi boat that consisted of salmon, swordfish, yellowtail, scallops dipped with fish roe, prawns and small serving of fish roe of another type (bigger in size and pops deliciously in your mouth) was one of the main dishes that was served up as part of the NYE dinner set for the nite. Hubbie said that a sushi boat like this with a few more sushi rolls would set him back CDN $35 back in Edmonton.

One of the cuter dishes that was being served was this cube-shaped wooden bowl that had some really good soba and it was soooooo refreshing!

Then came the dish that was the talk of the nite for Hubbie..... as Mala would put it... "gigantic uni-prawns"!

Here is Hubbie observing the platter of giant prawns that was just laid down in front of him and probably figuring out ways to consume all the prawns for himself.

See how big these babies are? And of course everyone was happy to pose for photos with their lil prawn feast.

With our tummies filled and happily satisfied, Hubbie and I headed down to Marina Boulevard to catch the fireworks that were to be let off at the Esplanade. We had had some debate about going for this as I definitely had no problems going for such events but Hubbie doesn't do well being in crowds and the last thing i wanted to happen in the first few minutes of 2008 is for us to get into an arguement resulting from him being annoyed at being in the huge crowd. Surprisingly, it was breezy.... VERY breezy at the open field where we were standing so made it a very good nite to just stand around and wait for the fireworks. Here are some of my more ok shots since it got very smokie towards the end of the display. I did however got a lil bitchy when 15mins after i had made sure that no one was sitting behind me and me blocking anyone's view since i was setting up the tripod, a couple of guys decided to stand right in front of my lens and blocking my view. I tried my best to say "Excuse me, do you mind?" with the sweetest smile i could muster.

I hope everyone had a good start to the new year cos i did like how i ended 2007 and welcomed the new year for 2008. With good food, great company and all of this with Hubbie by my side. Couldn't ask for a more perfect combination.
- 9:27 am
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