I'm moving.
Contact me if you're interested.

Recently I have found awesomeness in a sandwich. And it is not just your ordinary staple subway meal, it's the most amazing sandwich I've ever tried. Smoked salmon and turkey sandwich from Raffles Hotel's eatery, Ah Teng's Bakery. Freshly baked bread ( you can choose from a range of ciabatta to wholemeal), stuffed with a generous serving of crisp lettuce, juicy tomatoes and crunchy cucumbers, layered with smoked salmon and turkey pieces, and a squirt of spicy mustard sauce. It doesn't come cheap though, it's $9.90 for an approximate 8-inch sandwich, with freshly brewed coffee or tea from the eatery. Well if you're sick of eating school food, this really is a must-try.

Classes have ended for me, and one whole sem just flew by like that. No more jaded faces and dragging feet and endless projects and late nights, it's mugging for the next 2 weeks before finals. Back to the A level days. I missed it so much. Ew.

We had to interview healthcare professionals for our bgs project. I went down to some clinic to interview this young lady doctor, and asked her stuff like why she chose to be a doctor, etc.. Then she started to break down and said she only did so cause it seemed prestigious and her parents wanted her to study medicine, when in actual fact she wanted to be a teacher. So I spent 2 hours consoling her and told her she was doing a noble job saving lives.
Anyway all the above wasn't true, it was actually part of a dream I had. This really is scary, dreaming about projects and all. Another time I fell asleep thinking of what to do for Comms project and I actually dream-thought of it through my nap and woke up with an idea. Projects are almost all over and done with, just a couple of loose ends to tie up here and there, and I'm done for the sem.

My new love is the school gym. Nice and spacious with rather new equipment, working out there makes me feel happy. Going to the gym is gonna be part of my new routine next sem :)

Sis and dad are overseas, and mum's going overseas soon, so the house will be pretty empty. Chen is coming to stay over and Siska coming over from Indon next week. I can't wait!

Yesterday I left my laptop in the toilet opposite koufu, cause I changed to training wear and  totally forgot about it cause I was carrying my bag and shoebag. 3 hours later after gym training on my way home I realised I was carrying one bag less, and totally panicked. Went back to school, and with bek's help located the lost and found centre in schoool and THANKFULLY someone found it and returned it. The school's security system is really cool, there're over 20 security TVs in a room, like those you see in the movies. There are good people in this world. Thank you so much Shalina.

43 days to Christmas.

		Wed, Oct 22, 2008 The Straits Times
Hey good-looking
(Above: File photo of student beauty contestants from NTU, NUS and SMU.) IF FIRST impressions count, students from Singapore Management University must make the best ones. It secured a clear plurality of the votes (36 per cent) as the local tertiary educational institution with the most 'physically attractive' individuals in our impressionistic poll of 156 youths aged 17 to 27. The National University of Singapore and Ngee Ann Polytechnic came in second and third with 22 per cent and 16 per cent of the votes respectively. Interestingly, the majority of students from these three institutions voted for an institution other than their own, lending some credence to the notion that the grass is always greener (or better looking) on the other side. Our 84 respondents who were either university or polytechnic students also rated men and women from business faculties top in terms of looks. The most important factors behind their decisions were, as 45 per cent of our respondents claimed, 'personal experience', while 29 per cent attributed it to the 'general reputation within/of the institution'. Youth in the poll defined physical attractiveness as 'a beautiful bright smile, nice double eyelids and expressive eyes, high cheekbones and a slim athletic build'. Phrases such as 'pleasing to the eye', 'shapely figure', 'good personal grooming and hygiene', 'physically proportionate and symmetrical', and 'charismatic, strong facial features, good dressing' - all added to this week's poll being labelled 'The Unabashedly Shallow Poll'. If looks alone mattered in life, you now know where the best-looking students in Singapore are to be found. Andre Oei, 22, is a graduate student at Harvard University. This article was first published in The Straits Times on 20 Oct, 2008

This, is hilarious. I read it on tw's blog. What a poll to conduct! But really, smu students do dress pretty decently for school. No fbts for one. No sloppiness, no pyjamas and no going-to-the-wet-market wear. It's not about being superficial. or trying to look good, it's about being presentable. It's time to shop for more clothes, and fuel the dying economy :)

Recess week is finally here! 2 mid term papers are over, 2 more to go. Anyone who's good at statistics ask me out to study okay! Or if you're bad at stats like me, we can drown our sorrows together. haha.
Started off recess week with Dad's 50th birthday party and overnight cycling with TBL. Now I'm aching all over. We went from church to ecp to geylang to singapore flyer to marina bay, and even cycled along the F1 track!!! During night cycling we stopped by geylang to have supper, and I witnessed the saddest sight ever. Along one stretch of geylang, there was a whole long line of prostitutes, waiting for their clients. Imagine yourself in her shoes. You stand there one whole night in high heels, make-up, and revealing clothes. You don't want to do it. But you need the money. You hope the old guy doesn't approach you. You wonder if one day you'll ever get married, or even have kids. You wonder who will ever want you in the first place. If I ever get to be the president, the first thing i'll get rid of is prostitution. Once you give away your purity, you'll never get it back.

Anyway, being in uni makes one a very independent person, I think. You make your own choices on how you want your schedule to be like, who you hang out with, whether you want to go for class, cca etc. Being uncommitted actually feels good. Haha. After BGS mid-term on Saturday a few of us from BGS class went to have Macs breakfast cause we finished the paper in half the given time and there was still time for breakfast. After we finished breakfast we realised that the paper was still not over yet. Haha. My BGS prof is super on he organises stuff like class bbq for us and all. It's rather sec sch/jc-ish but I guess all of us appreciate it cause at least there's some kind of class spirit. In uni no one cares less about your fellow classmates unless they're your friends. Or your project group mates. Or your project group mates turn friends.

For those fretting about your grades, I got this quote from yl's blog, who got it from somewhere else:

“Yet the Grade Point Average does not allow for the health of our students, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of their poetry or the strength of their relationships; the intelligence of their public debate or the integrity with which they serve the public. It measures neither their wit nor their courage; neither their wisdom nor their learning; neither their compassion nor their devotion to their country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it seems to tell them everything about their future except why they should be proud of being our nation's future.”

' Going to school on a sunday for project meetings is a sad thing. The sadder thing is seeing so many other people in school as well' -David

I have a super siao-on prof who replies emails within 5 mins of receiving them, from as early as 9am on a Saturday and even at 11pm on a Saturday night saying he wants to give us a call tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss our project outline?!?! I have come to learn that SMU works 24/7. My seniors say I have yet to seen the worst such as spending CNY in school or staying overnight to finish up a project.

Mid-terms are coming up from next week onward, along with presentations, projects, assignments, quizzes, it truly is never ending. But I am enjoying school life. It's a 2 day school week for me next week, and recess week after that!! I can't wait. I have begun exploring new food places around school now (thank you stalker), do feel free to let me know about more food places im getting quite sick of school food already.
Claire, Becky, Shiyun and caleb all left last week, liz is leaving next. Since Sy was leaving, my primary school clique decided to meet up! It really is amazing to see each other again after so many years. All high-fliers now, every single one of them, except another friend and i, are all doing double degrees, studying medicine or studying overseas now! Wow. I guess the government was right when they selected the top 10% of the cohort to study in sap schools.

The F1 night race is finally here! The human traffic volume at city hall is now insane, and there was this woman on the train on Friday who was so pissed with people not moving to the centre of the train that she started screaming at everyone to move in. But in actual fact everyone was already packed like sardines and there was no way we could even budge an inch. To think the govt wants our population to increase to 6.5 million. Ridiculous! Having to squeeze your way through the crowd to find your space in the train with a laptop and a heaby textbook is not an easy feat already, imagine the population increasing by 50%. arghhh. I am so determined to learn how to drive.

Anyway, it's 12 midnight now, so HAPPY BIRHTDAY TO MUM AND DARRYL HO PING IN UK!!!

Presented by SRT's The Young Co.

10 - 14 September 2008

DBS Arts Centre - Home of SRT 

SRT’s The Young Co. presents the retelling of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost – a tale of The King of Navarre who has invited his three male companions to swear a very public oath to study together and to renounce women for three years.

Their honour is immediately put to the test by the arrival of the Princess of France and her three lovely female companions. It is love at first sight for all concerned despite the highly entertaining but hopeless efforts to disguise their feelings.

The Young Co. is a two-year educational platform for 17 to 25 year-olds, and Singapore Repertory Theatre’s (SRT) investment in future stage talent. It is Asia’s premiere part-time dedicated programme for young people attached to a repertory theatre. Twenty young people are selected from open auditions to form the core of the company and receive practical training in all aspects of theatre.

Be sure not to miss this enchanting production by Singapore's young talent this September.

Taken from : http://www.srt.com.sg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=664&Itemid=91

Anyone keen to watch?  Thursday or Friday night would be good. Tickets are going at $25. Let me know asap! :)

Claudia:

is aching from head to toe from her first soccer training.
thinks wlss field is the worst ever field to train in.
is extremely grateful for friends who can drive. Though I highly doubt you'll be reading this, RYNETTE YOU ROCK.
cannot grasp financial accounting.
has to go to the airport 3 times next week to send her lucky friends who are going overseas to study.
has just had japanese buffet at hanabi and had her fill for the week.
should cut down on social activities to mug.


I should really create a singaporean version of kids say the darnest things.

I was teaching Science, on the chapter magnetism, to my tuition kid last week.
Me: Magnets can attract magnetic materials, such as paper clips, iron nails etc
Kid: Paper clip made of paper ah?

Me: (explaining the meaning of the word expectant), Expectant can be used to describe a woman who is pregnant. The root word is expect, for example, you are expected to go to school everyday.
Kid: huh you must go to school with a baby ah?


Conversation with a friend just now;
D: do you have time for make it happen tmr at tm?
Me: No, i'm sorry i can't make it happen, i've got a FA test to study for.
HAHAHA

Currently, I am talking on the phone, chatting online, asking for accounting help, trying to watch a video, and finish this blog post, which I've given up on already, so I'm gona end here.
Goodnight!

Claudia Wong is a very dissatisfied customer. Since the start of school, due to her packed schedule and having 20 min lunch breaks on tuesdays and wednesdays, she had planned to buy subway every wednesday. That would make Claudia a potential customer contributing to $6 x 15=$90 this semester, and possibly $90 x 8 = $ 720 in her 4 years at smu. However, when she bought her turkey breast sub this morning, she found a PIECE OF STAPLE (it is NOT called staple bullet) in the middle of her sub! She actually bit into it and was in her mouth for more than 10 seconds before she realised the foreign object and spat it out in disgust. On the way home, she went back to the Raffles City branch and asked to speak to the manager. She told him nicely of her situation, and he couldn't even understand simple english, and the other staff had to explain to him. All she got was an apology, and a comment that it must have been the morning shift's mistake. No compensation was offered, and the staff just got back to their own business. If Claudia was in the US, she just might have struck it rich if she decides to sue Subway regarding this matter. She could have potentially had a piece of sharp metal slide down and cut her oesophagus, causing internal bleeding, and further harm to her stomach and guts. 
This is a case of extremely poor corporate social responsibility (CSR) !! ( i hope i am using the term correctly)


Anyway since I last blogged I've been through bondue crusade and freshmen camp, and have already been through two weeks of school. And the reason why I blogged in third person for the first paragraph is because my management communications prof said we should never write in third person so I did it on purpose to see how it would turn out to be. School's been alright, though I don't see why we  cannot be exempted from introductory statistics. It's A level math again! :( I am already having trouble with financial accounting on the second week, but I quite like my other mods such as technology and world change, man comms and business government and society. I guess words work for me more than numbers. I've already started staying in sch til 10 to do my first TWC debate+presentation, and I'm so glad its over and done with in the second week already. I love my timetable, its a 3 day week from mon-wed, so i have a 4 day break from school! :)

Today my tuition kid said he had half day on friday, and he looked at me as if I was supposed to know why. I asked him, and he said cause it's teachers' day! Then he took out a present and gave it to me!! I was plesantly surprised and very very touched. He said he picked it out himself. Awwww. My very first teachers' day present!



A pink disney princess hp holder! haha (:


It's party week this week! Freshmen bash, two 21st parties and a soccer party to attend! 3 days of school, 4 days of partying (:

Today's entire afternoon was spent with two kids, J and F. J, 9, is my tuition kid, I give him tuition at the cheapest rate ever, my smu friends say I might as well clock my 80 hours of CIP giving tuition, Haha. He has a super complicated background. His parents cohabited and had him while they were 17, mum left while he was 3. Dad married someone else, had a daughter, then divorced when he was 5 I think. He doesn't know what's going on, and keeps asking for his little sister. Right now J's staying with his dad and grandparents. His dad doesn't earn much, working in some logistics company, and also is part of some lion dance troop. J claims his dad doesn't come home some nights cause he's working, and also innocently tells me that he smokes a lot, after we read a comprehension on smoking. It's funny how children know that smoking is so wrong, yet they know their parents smoke, I wonder how they rationalise it. 

I pity kids like J, whose parent(s) don't give them proper attention, they grow up not doing well in school, not having their potentials and talents maximised. I really wonder what's going on inside his head when we do graph charts on a baby girl's weight increase (that's when he told me he has a sister who doesn't live with them), or when we read passages about mums. Once we were doing Father's day card at the primary school I used to work in, and this boy who didn't have a father wrote ' HAPPY H*LL day' on his card. Another boy wrote ' I hope you are safe in USA', because his mum told him his dad was there, when in actual fact his dad is behind bars. 

F, who's 6 this year, invited me over to her house to play because i don't work in the primary school anymore, and she just wanted to see me. I realised that if you promise a kid something, you better make sure you're able to carry it out. They won't be able to accept any excuses or valid reason.  I kinda promised F that I would visit her one sunday, but didn't turn up last minute because I didn't make necessary arrangements (such as inform her mum), plus I was held up doing surveys. Even though it was a casual remark (to me) very long ago, she remembered it very clearly and took it seriously. You know how we often tell our peers that we should meet up soon, and it doesn't ever happen. When you tell it to a kid, you have to mean what you say. Her mum said she was so sure I was gonna appear that day, and was waiting for me. I felt super bad to make her wait and cancel on her last minute, so I made it up to her today. I spent 2 hours there playing junior monopoly, fixing a box that I bought for her, some online barbie game, and masak-masak (cooking). It is so easy to just make a kid's day, all you have to do is appear. To them, time=love. 
I guess one reason why F wanted me to visit her was cause she wanted a play buddy, cause she's the only kid. I always wondered how it feels to be the only kid, no one to play or fight with. As far as I can remember my childhood was spent with my siblings, playing toys and fighting over them; even now that we're grown up we still play, but it's card games or ball games now. I think if I were the only kid I would be bored to tears. No matter how expensive it will be to raise a kid in the future, I would very much like to have at least 2 kids. I think 3 is the ideal though.

Here are some pics of my lovely kids, whom I miss a lot;











' It is so damn hard to find love in this world, to locate someone who cold make you feel that there was a reason you'd been put on this earth. A child, I imagined, was the purest form of that. A child was the love you didn't have to look for, didn't have to prove anything to, didn't have to worry about losing.' -Change of heart, Picoult

Shazam sports camp was a blast! Never before in my life had I been in a more comfortable camp, with hot showers ( i absolutely love the clean toilets and automatic flushing) and sleeping in air-conditioned carpeted rooms. The camp lived up to its name, and we played so many different sports in the 3 days, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. New sports for me were martial arts, floorball and bossaball! Bossaball is super fun, it's like this huge inflatable thing ( for the lack of a more suitable word) with a net in between, and a trampoline on each side. It is played like volleyball + sepak takraw, whereby players jump on this trampoline/ inflatable material and try to hit the ball over the net with their hands or feet. A perfect sport to try out somersaulting flips and kicks cause you won't get hurt. I enjoyed my group's company too; initially it took some getting used to that the guys were 2 years older, especially when we were asking if you know who's who that kinda thing I'd to constantly remind myself that. It didn't really feel that. I guess it's quite weird to be a female facil too and to lead a group in which the guys are a year older than you. haha. One thing different about uni camps is that there is absolutely no teacher in charge or adult around to watch over us, so all hell was let loose with excessive drinking games, smoking, attempted clubbing and a couple took it too far by deciding to use one of the study rooms for their private business. Apparently there was a camera in the room and the security guard had a free show and came up to warn us to stop any monkey business. One feel good moment in camp; ' She totally owned his ass!' someone from the sidelines commented during a soccer game, whereby I stripped a guy of his masculinity and ego by winning the ball successfully from him. Haha. One camp down, three more to go, and I can't wait!

Other than camps, life has been great without work. Except for tuition and surveying, which i am still doing to earn a bit peanuts and occupy myself. Ever since work ended, I haven't had a whole free day to myself yet. Soccer with mr. limp, Kevin's 21st, Dark knight with cell, helping out at some sec school camp, brother's basketball finals, school talks, tungling lunch, cell steamboat and the list goes on. 

And, I have the eyes of a FHM cover girl. Hahaha. Liz was watching beach.ball.babes one night and sms-ed to ask me which was my cousin, and she said she could guess which one cause she could see the similarity in the eyes. If you guys don't already know, my cousin's the only hot babe who knows how to play real volleyball. She's the captain of V-rockets (i think), the one in the no. 4 blue jersey.
Anyway i think the champions was a better show than this one, this one has a too predictable story-line already.

Another thing about having no school or work or commitments whatsoever is that you get to stay up late to blog, chat, or play texas hold'em on facebook til you go broke.

 



2 statements I do not adhere to:
1. Love hurts.
2. Love is giving someone the power to hurt you.

Before I continue any further, the above 2 statements were made by my friends, and the rest of this blog post has nothing to do with my life whatsoever, nor am I being emotional (yes, its the long and accurate form, do not ever use the first 3 letters in front of me,haha), or trying to sound cheem or anything, this just popped into my head one night before I was falling asleep. 

Because 1 Corinthians 13 says 'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
Love never fails.'

So how on earth can love hurt?  And if someone loves you back, how can that person bear to hurt you?
Maybe because we all portray love to be something perfect. But by our own human standards we each portray perfection to be of a different level, and when it fails to meet another person's standard, that's when it hurts.

Sumiko Tan (i love reading her articles), once wrote in the Sunday Times, ' Romantic love is the most silly reason to get yourself twisted up in anguish. This form of pain is selfish, self-inflicted and ultimately deserved. It is caused by an ego that believes someone else should dance to your tune and if things don't turn out your way, it's disaster, mayhem, sorrow and pain.'
Pain appears twice.

For those you watched prison break season 1, if you remember, Sucre asked Scofield for another word to replace love, as he was writing to his girlfriend from prison. Scofield said passion. And sucre, who is uneducated, tried spelling it out, 'p-a-s-h..' haha.

I guess the only form of love that hurts is passion, because passion, such as in the Passion of Christ, meant suffering. Suffering for love, to the point of giving up one's life on the cross. 
But that, is divine.
 

I have finally: 
- got a new phone, sony ericsson w890i. i wanted a G700 but it wasn't available.
-signed up for driving, and got my BTT date.
-got a LCD screen protector for my phone.
-got a new EZ link card.
-collected my A level cert.
-updated my blog and facebook
-gone to the John Little sale
-met up with teammates for dinner


I am very happy I got so many things done and it felt like a rather productive and fruitful 3 days. Anyway yesterday I went back to school to collect my cert, met Ms T and Mr T, and my juniors. June common tests were just over, and my juniors got their results back. Apparently they didn't do very well (well, that's just JC life) and were all in a gloomy mood. Just looking at their faces and hearing them complaining about their grades and seeing people in JC uniform mug, I just can't help but feel sympathetic for them. Not in a 'HAHA you have to mug' kind of way, but in an empathetic ' i wish you really didn't have to go through it' kind of way. Some people can get it right just like that, but they are the minority. People don't just get formulas and concepts and definitions at the snap of a finger. For me, I look back on my past 12 years of education with total abhorrence and disgust. The endless homework, assessment books, tuition, studying, late nights, no social life, no TV computer whatsoever, grounding, scolding from parents, the dread of counting down to one exam after another, anxiety of walking into the exam hall, taking the paper, and finally receiving results. 
I never understood why the elite must be placed on a rostrum, why the gifted students in dhs should be allocated the air-con classrooms(do their special brains only work at a certain temperature? while the rest of us are sweltering in the afternoon heat?), why the elite schools seemingly keep building bigger and bigger campuses, and most of all, most of all, I hate those stupid comments elite schools make whenever they lose a match to 'losier schools'; they say stuff like ' aye nvm at least we win them in studies'. I guess I myself have been guilty of some form of elitism, like wanting to go vj instead of tj ( i guess it's just the way the world works and how it drills its belief system into your head), but I am very very happy I ended up in tj, and that I got my A level grades there.
My dear juniors if you are reading this, don't lose heart alright! Keep working at it it's not the end yet! I'm confident all of you will pull through. Your well-deserved holiday will come soon! Jia you okay!

I'm back from Taiwan! I'm going to update on my entire June month, and pictures will be up on facebook soon!

Camp Golgotha, Youth camp at St Hilda's Primary
The last time i went for Youth camp was 2 years ago, and this was my first year in camp committee. Camp comm was a great team to work with, but it was hard work. Long days and late nights left us with eye bags and sore limbs, but we had our stash of red bull to keep us going, and of course the campers. Camp comm work is saikang work, but it's definitely a joy to serve. I guess this year's youth camp is rather different from past years ones, in the sense that it was more spiritually enriching, if I can put it that way. God's presence was strongly felt at camp, and many youths were being blessed and ministered to. 

Malaysia Trip with family
Went to Kuala Lumpur on the day Youth camp ended, and we were there for 4D3N. Stayed at my aunt's apartment in Mont Kiara, an expatriate area. My aunt is the big boss of hallmark malaysia branch! Lots of angmohs, Koreans, Japanese and Indians living in the condo, so it didn't really feel like Malaysia. I've been to Malaysia countless times already, it's kind of become a family routine. This time round felt like a real holiday, cause I DIDNT HAVE TO BRING ALONG ANY HOMEWORK, unlike my pitiful siblings. Haha. Time was mainly spent shopping and eating, at our usual places and also we ventured to new ones. Interesting eats were sashimi pizza, fried brie (it's a kind of cheese) with raspberry sauce, and of course, our usual bak kut teh, roti chenai, tong shui (iced dessert), and shang ha mien. Shopping was done at megamall, timesquare, one utama, bangsar etc. We also went to a huge warehouse kind of place which sold baking stuff so my mum stocked up on her baking equipment. Siblings and I had movie marathon every night, and we successfully completed Prison Break season 3, Enchanted, 27 dresses, and Perfume. 

Taiwan Trip with friends
I just returned from Taipei, Taiwan last night, was there for 5D4N with elizabeth, pearl and jackson. This was my first trip with friends, or no adults. We went free and easy, so we had to do all the planning, in other words, the grown-up stuff. We flew with jetstar, and met a female co-pilot on board the plane!  How cool is that! We were so excited and impressed that we took pictures with her, haha. She was nice enough to let us.  Many girls dream of marrying a pilot, but if I were a guy, I would want to marry a female pilot. Females like her are darn attractive and command respect without even having to try. We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, with our nights ending at 1am and days starting at 12 noon, mainly because the shops opened around that time. Taiwan is a pretty easy place to go about if you can speak the Chinese language, and Taiwanese are so helpful and hospitable. The service sector is amazing, from chatty and informative cab drivers to the toilet woman at Din Tai Fung, who cleans the toilet seat after every user, and says thank you to you 3 times when you use the toilet. Shopping was alright, didn't get much clothes though cause it just wasn't really our type of clothes, but we ate. The way we ate, it seemed as though our stomachs were bottomless pits, really. Night markets were the highlight of the trip, whereby we patronised almost every single street food stall, and I think we ate almost 90% of Taiwanese street food. We tried smelly tofu, xiao long bao, wild boar sausages, pig's blood cake, barbecued cuttlefish, squid, oyster omelette, sotong balls, beef noodles, tian bu la, mua chi, pancake, egg roll, quail egg balls, takoyaki, shrimp rolls, pepper meat buns, mee sua, ribs cooked in herbal soup, papaya milkshake, pearl milk tea, apple vinegar drink, almond milk drink, bamboo rice, shaved ice/snow dessert, and the list goes on and on and on. Street food absolutely rocks, when I had lunch back in Singapore today, it tasted so bland. We enjoyed Din Tai Fung so much we went back twice. Other than food, we pampered ourselves too, soaking in beitou's hotsprings, and also went for a 6-star full body massage. Our masseurs were rather chummy with us, and were blatantly flirting with us by complimenting us and telling us that getting a masseur boyfriend would be an added advantage. haha. It was a darn good massage, especially after one whole long day of walking, and we were all screaming SHIOK after that. Language wise, we, or rather only Jackson and I could could converse pretty well with them, while Pearl and liz struggled with direct translation from english. My soccer friends who are reading this now are probably doubting the fact that I could converse in Chinese properly, but I can alright! I must say I spoke pretty fluent Chinese, I'm not kidding you. Haha. Danshui was a rather nice place too, we took a boat fisherman's wharf, and watched the lovely sunset. There were fireworks in the far distant at night, and the night lights from sea were pretty nice too. Other places we visited were Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall to get a sniff of history and also took a cablecar ride to view Wulai's waterfalls. Transport in Taipei was excellent as well, we didn't want to be spoilt tourists who took cabs so we took the train and the bus too. It was pretty easy getting around by train, excellent Metro system, something similar to Singapore's, but ten times better. Tap cards like the EZ-link ones in Singapore, trains come on time, and there is SO MUCH SPACE on the train, even during peak hours. We got seats 90% of the time, and didn't have to squeeze and push with other consumers. What impressed me most was that the Taiwanese were so polite and orderly in boarding the train. They really queued up in line and everyone kept to the RHS of the escalator, I have pictures to prove it. I seriously wonder why in Singapore we keep to the LHS. Singapore could do better if we learnt from the Taiwanese in terms of social graces and the hospitality in the service sector especially.

Well, that's all I can say, to have a better picture of my trip, view my facebook pics! 
I'm having my second holiday back in Singapore now, I'm not working this entire week!
Anyone wants to meet up or catch up do let me know! 


  

Shannie misses my blogging. People are complaining that I've not been online in eons. I can't believe I'm so busy. After Camp Golgotha which was amazing, and my Malaysia trip, I'm leaving for Taiwan this Fri with my Dhs friends. Had class lunch today, followed by the movie Penelope, which I felt was an alright show. 19/06, I miss you guys loads. I also went for TLBC gathering on Sat, Jocelyn came to stayover, and had coffee with Aaron. Before I leave for Taiwan I'm going to meet up with Jiewei, plan for Taiwan, have dinner with colleagues, and another stayover. haha. Wow.
I want to upload all my pictures on facebook but apparently I'm having some trouble.
After I return from Taiwan, one more week of work, then I'm gonna have my real holiday, without work.

Here's more intelligent conversations I've had with the kids;

I was teaching the P2s idioms,
Me: A bed of roses means a smooth-sailing, comfortable life. Thus, you can use it as such : Mary was born into a rich family, and her life has been a bed of roses.
Kid: But roses have thorns, how can it be comfortable?

P4 Science experiment;
Marbles were dropped into a cylinder of water, and some water overflows.
Q: What do you learn from this experiment?
A: Water is precious.

I decided to tell them I was gonna stop working there soon, at least to let them be mentally prepared instead of just leaving without a goodbye. They couldn't understand why I had to leave so soon, and they kept insisting I stayed on. I hope they don't cry the day I leave.

 






I've finally made my choice. I've had another hectic week, with my day ending at 10+ pm every night because of camp com meetings, and 2 stayovers this week. Let's hope I'm not running on low battery yet. I'm probably gonna be just as busy til youth camp, plus I've got lots of other things to do as well. So, don't bug me til 16th of june okay!