Burnt.

It's probably the 4th or 5th day of the NTU Sports Camp and a couple of us headed down to Pasir Ris Park so that the participants could have a go at the windsurf equipment. Things didn't start off too smoothly; it took Collin and me awhile to find the exact location and we were late for 30 minutes for making U-turns all over, I realized I'd forgotten to include the U-joint in the equipment packing list two minutes after arriving at the beach, the Chinook boom that I'd packed was too big for the 6.5m sail that we were using for the day... everything was horrible and I felt terrible for screwing up.

Titus, thankfully, made his way to East Coast and saved the day. I'm going to treat this as a lesson and not repeat the same mistakes again when sports club comes to us for help again next sports camp.

Pink Martini - Sympathique

Cute! The lyrics, when translated, relate to something more sad though. I think French's a beautiful language... one of these days, I hope I'll be able to pick it up again.

On a diet... with Nam Kee's Chicken Rice Restaurant and Icekimo

You guys are probably never ever going to believe me again for that, but I really, really do want to lose some weight; drop a few kilos by the end of the year and keep a more healthy weight. I've been cutting down on food consumption; two meals a day instead of three (because I wake up so damned late, and ice-cream's not considered a meal), and not over-eating whenever I can.

I really liked stuffing myself silly at the dinner table; sometimes it was plain greediness, and other times I just thought it was wasteful not to finish up. Keeping fingers crossed that I'll stick to my "no over-eating policy"... and the guys will no longer have to joke about my harness ra.

___

Dieting issues aside (:p), I headed down to Thomson with Shir, Simin and Kwunhok for dinner last night. We ended up at Nam Kee's, a chicken rice restaurant along the long stretch of food places at Thomson, before getting a few pieces of cheesecakes/brownies to share from a shop hidden in a secluded corner and finally settling down for ice cream at Icekimo.

The interior of Nam Kee looks like one of those traditional and really old-school kopitiams, but it's fully air-conditioned. It felt very much like one of those (and probably is) family restaurants where the entire family comes together to help with the manning of the shop.

water chestnut and lime juice

Apart from their specialty, chicken rice, they also serve some zi char dishes like Ma Po Tofu, Sweet and Sour Pork, Fried Omelettes, Fish, Sambal Kang Kong, etc etc. We ordered half a roast chicken, half a boiled chicken, some greens and a Ma Po Tofu.

my favourite condiment for chicken rice

The chicken was nice, but not the nicest that I've had. The meat was tender, most of the time, but there were times when I thought it was a little dry... or maybe it was just the breast portion (not a big fan of chicken breast meat).

check out the matching blue

Our Ma Po Tofu and greens weren't too bad either, like what I said earlier, it's a lot like what you'd get from zhi char stalls at kopitiams; familiarity.

our tofu; quite a variety of ingredients in there

the spread

There were a few more close-up pictures that I took of the chicken but I deleted them by accident. Anyway, the food's not bad on the whole, but don't expect anything too mind-blowing. Our bill came up to $46 for the four of us; pretty reasonable since we had two more dishes apart from the chicken.

iceberg.

We moved across the road over to Icekimo for some ice-cream post-dinner. I just realized there's quite a few ice-cream shops sprouting up all over the island... and that said, Icekimo is one of them. I thought the Banana and Walnut combi that KH picked was rather nice; and I sort of regretted not picking the more quirky Guiness Chocolate Chip flavour. Ohwell, I guess that calls for a second visit soon.

ps. I watched Slumdog Millionaire (online) finally; I like it and I shed a tear or two when I saw all the nasty things that poverty drives people to do and the unfairness of society sometimes.

Picking up the beads again...

While I was at Kaka's place for the last time last week, I saw a whole bunch of interesting stuff that his mum was going to give away. Items that were either too much of a hassle to bring back to Hong Kong since they could easily get them there, and I saw this:

It's the most colourful abacus I've ever seen, and all that colours make me really happy! I asked Kaka if I could have that and he said okay, so here it is on my study table right now. I used to go for abacus classes at the community centre when I was much younger, probably Kaka's age, and I remember enjoying those classes a lot.

I can vaguely remember what I've learnt; but I guess I sort of stopped at subtraction back then. Looking at some online tutorials, I'm hoping to get back some of that memory, and also learn how to multiply and divide with the abacus.

Anyway, I think it's really a great way to get kids interested in mathematics; the interactiveness of it all. If only there's a way to get most of them kids in schools to learn how to use the abacus, I suppose it'll help sharpen their minds much more.

No more mess at the create post page

I meant to update more but my "Create New Post" page was in a mess for the past few days; icons disappearing and so on. Looked online for the solution (apparently it's a singnet problem?), and I finally managed to get the page to load normally again after some online help that's been circulating.

Anyway, two of my tutees have finally gone back to Hong Kong on the 23rd; they're not coming back for the next few years so the odds of seeing them again are pretty low. They're my very first students in tutoring, and I have been really lucky to have been able to teach them, even though they can be super annoying at times. I've heard of stories whereby students don't click with their tutors, or parents that are really demanding and stingy from friends, and I can only count myself lucky that I've had it much easier than them.

we were having breakfast together at the dining table; that's kaka after trying to imitate a dog's way of eating... sigh boys.

My tutees' mum has been nothing but nice to me, always offering to prepare breakfast/lunch/snacks for me when she knows that I haven't eaten, never fails to give me tuition fees on time, hands out treats on special occasions (mooncakes, red packets, dumplings on birthday celebrations) and even gave me a big box of Rocher. She left me her HK number and welcomed me to look them up if I happen to visit Hong Kong in future so that we can go yum-cha together.

the Chans and me, at the balcony in their Tanjong Rhu condo.

On the last tutoring day I had with them (that's 20th July), I got them some pastries from Emicakes and she insisted that we sit down together to eat them. I gave all of them a big hug before bidding the final goodbyes. Never thought that the time to part will be so soon; I guess I was sort of caught off-guard. Will definitely miss having them around...

On the day I turned 21, I headed down to Orchard Plaza for my monthly waxing appointment... and, visited the tattoo parlour (8 Volts) next door. I've been contemplating (for the longest time ever) on what my first tattoo should be, and I finally settled on Ai (love), amongst a tiny dolphin and a nautical star.

My artist, Jeremy, printed out the stencil and transferred it onto my right hip after applying some cooling lotion; it left behind a purple-blue outline of what and where my tattoo was going to be. I looked at it in the mirror abit, and decided it was a little too big for my liking. Got Jeremy to print a smaller stencil and he wiped the original one away. Once I gave the green light, he got the tattoo chair ready and had me lie down on my side.

He started off with relatively shorter and less painful 'strokes' as he did the outlining. It felt like something really sharp was digging into my skin and I squirmed in the chair for a bit before I got used to that sensation. The shading wasn't as painful because he used a needle with a rounder and thicker tip. He talked to me so that I could keep my mind off the pain a little, and was constantly checking if the pain was bearable for me.

We were done in 45 minutes and he took a few pictures of my freshly inked hip. I thought it was quite cool how the Ai character was imprinted on the paper towel with my blood as Jeremy wiped it away. After so much talk about it, here's a picture!

can't reallys see all that blood eh?

It's healing right now, but a few of my shirts and shorts have been stained; the wound gets wet everytime after I shower. I've been trying to pick at the dried-up bits but I think it'll take me a few more days before all the scabs fall off.

Headed down to JB the day after with some windsurfers and it was a food-filled day.

my slice of carrot cake with a candle. cute.

KTOWY night-out on Thursday and I had a big surprise. I thought we were having dinner at Lagoon Food Centre, but I saw them in the little pavilion instead. They'd prepared some food the whole afternoon and cabbed down carrying all that barang so that everyone could have a good time.

I just realized WJ got cut off.. hee

I know they really put in a lot of effort in all that preparation and I feel really lucky to have them love me like that!

look at my sushi 'cake'! they did it all by themselves!

I couldn't stop smiling after seeing the 'cake'; I have really cute friends who come up with the most creative ideas.

all smiles here and tears moments later... haha. got a hair-cut, if you can see!

Instead of a cake-smashing session, they decided that it's a better idea for me to finish up a sushi with a wasabi-smeared bottom. The group was definitely generous with the wasabi and I could feel my nostrils and throat on fire after I managed to shove it down my throat on the third attempt. JM managed to capture the super unglam moment on video, no less. Maybe I'll put it up one of these days; so that you can hear me scream in protest.

it was a great amount of sushi; I had whatever was leftover from the night for lunch and dinner the next day.

We ended the night in crazy snapping frenzy; rushing for timed shots, jumping around and lots of laughter in between and games with forfeits like sushi-eating, sushi-eating and sushi-eating hurhur. I love you guys!

Oh, and I just discovered the Macro function on my camera after SK asked me about me some days back. Here's a mini dream-catcher that JM got for each of us during his recent Taiwan trip!

I have an uncle; he used to be one of my favourite uncles until he became a parent, and I got into NIE. He's got two kids, a girl of 7 and a boy of 5.

I haven't been talking much to him of late, but "stupid MOE policies", "tuition teachers not doing much", "kindergartens too much fun for kids to learn anything" and topics like such make up any one of the conversations that we have.

He's usually asking if I've heard of so-and-so policy that MOE's just come up with, fills me in with what it's all about, and then starts criticizing it as though there's really no point in carrying them out.

Only yesterday, he asked if I've heard of some MOE literacy assessment programme that his daughter's school's just introduced. I said no, and he went on to question the need for the programme, and why are they only doing it in the later part of the year, why can't they do it at the start of the new year, etc etc.

Seriously, if I knew why, I'd probably be sitting in the education minister's seat, won't I?

I replied politely (only because he's an uncle) that it could be a new policy that's only just drawn up, and of course he was unsatisfied with my answer. I'm from NIE, I'm a teacher-to-be, of course I must know what are the uses of all these stupid policies.

He goes on to complain about how poorly his girl is doing in school, only achieving 70+ instead of his expected 90+ in exams, and how he doesn't approve of his boy having "too much fun in kindergarten". He's not even in primary school, for christ's sake!

The way he speaks scares me, a lot. Am I going to deal with parents who are all like that in future?

Are they all going be so competitive (read: kiasu), constantly comparing grades of their children, questioning the teaching methods of schools and teachers, and have the final say in what should or should not be taught in schools? Are they all going to expect teachers and schools to promise something and deliver something that's 10 times better?

I am absolutely terrified by the thought of that happening.

I've always thought my Dad was bad enough (insists that I should spend all my time studying, but nice otherwise), but I think I had it much easier than the two poor kids.

Children growing up in such environments, I can predict exactly what they're going to turn out to be. They grow up feeling they're never good enough for their parents, have crushed self-esteems because they never seem to be able to live up to their parents' expectations, and have extremely competitve natures. Oh, and joyless childhoods.

I really hope my uncle will just let his two kids grow up the way they should and want to, instead of setting so many expectations for them. It gets tiring for both the kid and the parent, and too much pressure is never a good thing.

And so I turn 21

To be dead honest, it didn't feel very different from the 20th... Not that i'd have it any differently. No big party because I really suck at entertaining so many groups of people simultaneously. I chose to have dinners instead; first up the durian buffet with the primary school clique, and then with my family at Conrad. Will be having dinner with the KTOWY gang tonight, and Ham's dinner appointment should be fixed sometime soon. Is it any surprising that I'm celebrating with food? Not really hmm..

And I did something that i've always wanted to do on my 21st. I got inked; and I almost couldn't believe I was finally getting it done until the tattooist placed the stencil onto my body. It was slightly more painful when he did the outlining, and the colouring was really a lot less painful. Will post up a picture or two and talk more about it soon.

Headed down to JB for a walkabout with some of the windsurfers yesterday, and I think the place is so much more developed than i'd imagined it to be. Little wonder why so many singaporeans are flocking there every weekend for the cheap groceries and fresh seafood feasts.

ps. there's something wrong with blogger; the posting page's all jumbled up. Is it only my browser, or are you guys having the same problem too?