Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A New Day

This morning, as we parked into the carpark lot at our new breakfast joint (Parsir Panjang), I saw this flamboyant truck on the side of the road, couldn't help but whipped out my new Canon Powershot G12 and snapped away. Bren says the fella "play Thai" (meaning the dress-up of the truck is similar to those commonly found in Thailand). But it has Japanese Anime, I thought.
Well, Thai or Jap, it certainly brightened my morning.


Lancelot
This fella also "play Thai" ,,,, Oops!   HA HA HA

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Colin & the Papa




Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Learning from a Distance


Hertfordshire

After more than two decades of non-stop work, I feel it is time to upgrade again.
Earlier in the year, I inquired on MBA programmes from a few private schools here.
To my horror, the postgraduate diploma I have from Chartered Institute of Marketing UK, had devalued.
This is because they now speed course the usual 3-year programme into just six months.
I do not blame the academics to raise the bar, given this questionable trend from my alma mater. 
We used to be courted by University of Hull for the Masters programme but now, they won't even take a look at me even if I pay the hefty sum of thirty over thousand dollars. As much of an work experience I have, it constitutes to nothing in their eyes as long as I do not head a team of staff to count for my professionalism.
They do not care if our staff hierarchy is a flat one.

I enjoy learning and I love to learn. And so I dove back to finding the next plan of action to satisfy my thirst.
There are several other MBA programmes that will take me but I feel that I need some greasing of my brain before I commit, hence I've taken a sidetrack and signed up for a distance learning course with University of Hertforshire for their Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration. With my credits, I will join the final year and take eight modules in the span of 12 months.

The lesson is dispatched via a net portal with our student login. It is an academic's haven I must say, you get access to hundreds of books, e-books, journals, papers and pod-casts.
The lessons are also being facilitated by a local partner (BMC) where I attend class twice a week on Tuesday and Friday evenings.

So far, I've just started on three modules overlapping each other and am barely able to finish speed reading the materials and it's already time for assignments. The assignments come in several forms. They are our "exams" so to speak. You got to write essays individually, as a group, do video presentations, online timed quiz as well as timed, open book essay. Each lecturer / professor will have his/her style and we just got to follow. I find this a refreshing learning concept and have turned myself into a "bus-learner". I don't know why but I tend to be able to absorb the lesson even as I read while on the bus or listen to audio podcast while traveling. So I guess this mobile style of lesson plan suits me.

Suddenly, I feel fresh again!

 chapters all marked out awaiting to unleash

a doodled heart on discussion note

Friday, March 8, 2013

Chinese word Sketches

 Last night, we were revising for her "test" this Sunday and i was writing the words on ipad as i did not want her to be too accustomed to reading from flash cards. turned out she couldn't recognise my handwriting and insisted she wants to draw too. i let her have the ipad after a short scuffle and challenged her to "show me!". She surprised me with some rather fanciful drawings indeed.

we came up with our versions to help recognise the words.
"ge ge" is very hungry, hence he "armp yum yum" ate four mouthfuls of food. (four squares represent his mouth)
 artistic dots?
"shang" & "xia" are easy, point up and point down respectively.


 hands by the side = small in size  "xiao"


 stickman - this needs no explanation, she extends her arms and legs to show me huge,  "da"


 i explained to her all females cross their legs, hence the "nui". she added "rectangle" for "jie jie"sister.


Monday, March 4, 2013

Let's March

 Super contagious smile
 and a Manja face
 So many kiddy rides

 Attended a Safari-theme birthday party, Sunday.

 One quick ride before heading to Chinese class, Sunday 9am!

 Been buying her bus & MRT fares for quite some time now,,, (fro violin classes. to, we take cab)

 Saturday's Breakfast, "Kutu Mayam"? I have not eaten this for eons and had it twice this week! (unplanned)
Talk about coincidence.
 Hans BF with Brendan, Sunday.

 This semi-cured my mass headache on Friday evening.

 and this is a lift-my-mood-and-cure-my-headache treat for myself!

Finally, a stout to go along with these skewers, Saturday night.