More pictures from Office Award Night....

1001 Arabian Night ! ! !

Our annual office award party in the office today was a success! This is the first time we have so many people dressing to the theme, and the decoration they put up in the pantry was fabulous! And with the arabian music and a very decent middle eastern buffet spread, we all had a good time.. of course the free flow of champagne and turkish ice cream helped..
The award event itself was quite good too! This time, it was actually fun, not too long, and with a few fun episodes, and a surprise belly dance performance volunteered by Kamel ! A true eye opener! Too many photos to post, so better keep this short and let the photos tell the story.....

Time Flies...

Time really flies.. it's been 6 days since I updated my Blog. Nothing unusual happened. Cycled with Yinghong on Saturday morning in Pasir Ris park as usual, but it rained and we stopped to put on rain coat and continued for a short distance till we reached the playground. The rain stopped by then and she had a quick round of fun there. Not sure if it's because of the rain, she had a fever in the evening. But in the afternoon, we still manage to drive to bukit batok to attend a baby full-month party at Boon Chong's colleague's place.
Sunday was rest day for all of us. Ying Hong's fever subsided and was fine through the day, even went to Clarice's home to play in the afternoon. I was Clarice's birthday, so I baked some cup cakes and wrote "Happy Birthday Claris" (spelt her name wrongly, should be Clarice) for her. We went to Metro Tampines in the morning where I bought a single quilt and quilt cover, and other bed linen, towel. BoonChong also bought toys for Yinghong and himself! The closing sale was really a bargain, told Kholifah about it and she went there in the afternoon with her friends, and got a couple of things for her son.

Mid week... 2 more days to weekend!

Nothing special to write about today, except for the exasperating experience sitting next to a big fat boy dozing off next to me in the MRT on the way home.. with the train jerking, the huge lump of heavy weight leaned on me, giving me a sore shoulder...stupid #@$%@#...
Anyway, I came online to post 2 pictures of Yinghong as she was jealous yesterday that I didn't post more of her photos.. ok... so here they are!

Bangkok ... & Life-long Learner...

Today at least 2 people raised the alarm to me : THB is so expensive now!!! Shopping will be more expensive! That's so true, and I have missed the boat again, sat on the thought of looking at stock/funds in thailand but never acted on it.. oh well. My colleague in london is also lamenting that housing and everything else are getting very expensive these days he might need to fly to New York to shop... GBP hits 26 yr high againest the USD!
Beside lamenting, I don't really have a lot of good tips to share... especially when I don't have much to invest in.... sigh.

Just saw a notice in TODAY soliciting nomination for a "Life Long Learner" award. That instantly reminds me of my mother. Not only is she wise, kind, and loving (all the grand children adore her!), she demonstrated the traditional (and fast disappearing) qualities of Chinese women -- Hardworking, sacrificial (always putting the needs of family ahead of hers), and showed us the spirit of life-long learning despite obstacles and hardship. The early part of her life must have been a familiar story... eldest of 7 children, she could only afford a few years of primary school education before she had to work and take care of the whole household (cooking,cleaning, tailoring, etc) at the age of 12. Married and started a family at 21, she never had comfortable life... imagine selling Pisang Goreng at a street side push-cart, through her third pregnancy...
I remember during my secondary school days, she bought a set of English-tuition cassette tapes and learned English by the Cassette player every night after all the chores, and finally qualified for some quality-control post in a micro-chips factory. Not only that, she had to learn about book keeping, journal entires, ledger posting so she could help my dad with his part-time accounting work. And through her last few years of working (when I was in the University), she persisted through a long and tiring routine everyday : waking up at 4+am every day to do laundry, prepare breakfast, then leave for a 7am-3pm shift work, sweep and mop floor after she reached home, and cook dinner. Her day only ends after she washed all the dishes (we help occasionally, but she insisted we focus on our studies and rest), ironed some clothes, read the newspapers. She is finally retired now, but she has found new focus in learning about investing in the stock market, frequently attending seminars organized by the SGX, and also took up computer/internet lessons at the CC... truly a life-long learner...
I think I am really lucky to have such an admiring mother... and I doubt I have achieved half as much as her (hardship-adjusted speaking)...

Sad yet happy ... All the BEST to you , Ali !!

Dear Ali, finally you are bidding farewell to all your colleagues and friends. I will really miss you, all your "profound" jokes, and deeeeeeep-meaning phrases.... no one around to challenge me to understand her words anymore. But of course I am truly happy that you have found something exciting and suit your liking, best of all, it gives more $$$$ !?! I am glad at least we can still keep abreast of each other's life through the blogs. Yvonne also gave me her Blog address to link on my page.

On a different topic and on a more serious note, I wonder how many Singaporeans will always make an effort to clear their own mess after a meal... I mean in a fast food restaurant or cafeteria (like IKEA) where convenient and very visible clearing bins/centre are available.
Think all of us know the answer... definitely very few. But I think those who don't fall into the following categories :
1) Those who truly believe it is alright and don't give it much thought because they assume the cafe's cleaner will do the job (a habit from being "served" at home all the time?) --- innocently negligent lot--we can still educate them...
2) Those who are plain lazy; they sort of know what they are expected to do but would take the easy way out and pretend it's ok when no one is looking (or telling) --- what can I say --- a lot without much discipline --- we can still encourage them...
3) Those who truly believe that the price they paid includes both the food and "after-service" and don't give a damn when there are people waiting to use the table ---- truly defiant and extremely selfish ---- these are the incorrigibles ....
Not a new observation, but just thought of it, so putting it down here... it's so true, the old chinese saying ----"a single type of rice feed more than a hundred types of different people"

An activity-filled weekend...

Yesterday morning was rather hectic, plus I didn't sleep that well the night before as YingHong insisted on bunking in our room with me and her on the floor. Nevertheless, I accomplished the usual Saturday morning wet market trip to get the week's groceries, then we walked to Parkview Primary School for the open-house day. Many of our Condo neighbours and some of YingHong's Yamaha classmates were there too. Parents had a rather informative session in the AV room, but we all feel the presentation was too long. Children had a great time in the hall with games, dance, and snack pack and a goodie bag. I think the school did a good job in marketing to the kids. Quite a good effort by teachers and students there, really. Met up with BoonChong's colleague from France for lunch and went to our old haunt --- the Singapore Zoo ! All enjoyed the walk, except it was a bit humid as clouds were gathering and drizzled a little.

Today (Sunday), I phoned Bee Yean and she brought her little girls to my place for an afternoon swim, before we all went separately to have dinner at our mum's place (Niang Jia).

Weekend is finally here!

TGIF! This week past by rather quickly, think it's because I was busy at work. We had a "casino" set up in the office pantry today, but I missed the betting games as our team were in a meeting. Nevertheless we managed to get some nice scoops of New Zealand ice cream (of course I went for the one that's 75% fat free..) in a waffle cup.. yummy! Rushed off after work to meet Yinghong at Yamaha and sat in her class. This is a new semester and the new teacher is quite nice and funny, much like the previous one. I am glad the children enjoy her class. After the class, we walked past a Simpson Family display in the mall. Looked cute, so we took a picture. I had Yinghong posting next to the baby, pretending she was trying to pull the pacifier out of the baby's mouth.. heee..

Just this morning I was having some serious thoughts and though I will put them down in this blog, but I already forgotten most of it!!!!! Gosh! Wait, I do remember one :
I thought I wished I had started this blog thing much earlier. This is a rather good idea. There are many friends I wish I could keep in touch with more often that I now do, and sometimes I do miss them a lot, but have no time to call or email everyone to say hi. Now I can ask them to read this blog for some updates in my life! Amazing! This is the good part of technology revolution! The ugly side of technology advancement.... well, I will leave it here, much has been discussed everyday everywhere already. To all my friends out there.. Hope you are well and with you good health, good fun, and a very good life!!!!!

My first BLOG finally!

Been thinking about doing this for so long, but words never turned into action till now. Thanks to Alicia, her blog inspired me, and with the help of my lovely and adventurous daughter - Yinghong, BRAVO! This is it! Let's hope I will find time to update this regularly. Happy Happy Happy!