Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Changing Shift

Bye, My Melody. Hello, Kitty!

Sometimes, I feel that I am so old-school. Some things just do not die off. Like my habit of keeping a schedule note book year after year. And this is since primary school days when the norm was to draw lines across the blue coloured cover time-table booklet and add your schedule & dates.
When I first started work, I studied part-time at night. So, I needed to plan the scarce free time and slot in as much activities I could. And that was how the habit carried on.
I do not like digital diaries as I find them impersonal.
Most of the time, I let a few diaries collect before reviewing them at one go and then I discard them all at the same time. Sometimes, I am surprised at how I don't remember many things that happened (!) and I am always glad that the diaries jog my memory.
Mainly, I draw candles, reminding myself on my friends' & relatives' BDs.
Now, of course Kiki's schedules occupy most of the checkers.
2O11, let's go!

CNY - 2O11 (prelude)

New PJs, per set $14.90 @ Isetan (sale price)

The coming Lunar New Year is about a month from now so I've started buying Kiki's clothing & Bren's. Benetton is having a sale at Isetan and members get additional 10% off, so these are about 40% off the regular price. Bought a street-chic top & pink sweatpants for Kiki. (Total about $40, which is very worth it, the fabric is soft and feels so good.)




And a simple T-shirt dress. Something casual for regular use later on. ($20+++)


KIV

I stood there peering at each dash, each stroke, studying the layers and memorizing in my heart how I should do this, what colours to mix. It is beautiful. I love how I could see the depths. I'm talking about the backdrop, in case you didn't realise. I really hope I can achieve something to this effect. I really do. Okay, that will mean I've got to practise. And perhaps resume my art jamming sessions. Yes, I think that's the idea I'll go for.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Repo Man

Bren & I go for massages at this SPA place at Roxy quite frequently. Once or twice in a month.
I like that place because the furnishing and ambience are very oriental, it looks like a chill out hangout for underground people. You know, people keeping to themselves, plus the dim lighting adds to the air of secrecy. Most of the time, I am the only female patron there.

If you like those back croaking / neck croaking type of massages, then you will like this place.

So anyway, they serve coffee / tea & lunch if you care for a meal after your massage.
We are always thrilled. So far, the local fare are like pork cutlet rice, chwee kuey (soupy), Ipoh noodles, and the nots.

After your meal, if you care for a movie, you can pop in to their theatrette and watch a show.
We caught the "Repo Man" last week.

I wished the sound system was louder, perhaps I ought to tell them to turn up the volume or I would be straining to listen to the dialogues.

So anyway, the Repo Man is a sci-fi movie and it highlighted a scary possibility of a world where artificial body organs are on hire. A company (in the movie: The Union) lets you have the organ, for instance- the liver, the lungs, heart and pancreas. To keep themselves alive, most people sign a repayment agreement for the organs, out of desperation. The trouble comes when the client is unable to keep up with the hefty installment. Three months overdue and a repo man will be sent to collect the organ. Most of the time, the client dies in the process.

Small groups of clients become escapists. They jam the scanners and go into hiding.
So the repo man's job is to hunt them and net back all the organs. The organization is purely commercial oriented, profit driven and cold blooded. Their philosophy is that it is a contract and the client signed on the dotted line.

So, Jude Law was the main character- the repo man.
Somewhere along the course of his work, he began to have a conscience and didn't feel good about himself in his job. His wife pressures him to leave his job. More so now that she doesn't want their son to know the truth about Jude's bloody job.

Jude tries to talk himself into continuing his job and fends off his conscience by saying "a job is a job" over and over.

But at the end of the day, he realised that a job is not just a job, it is who you are.

Before he could make amends, he found himself a "victim" of his own organization. He had a mishap and had an artificial heart installed. (his childhood friend who is also his work partner created the accident, thinking that by creating a dependency in the job will force Jude to stay on and they could both get the promotion he was gunning for) Jude however, could no longer have the conscience to continue his repo job and fell back on his payments and became the hunted.

The rest of the plot is not as interesting. He met another woman on the street etc and after loads of running and fighting, they redeemed their artificial organs and wiped out all records of other clients, thus freeing all of them from their giant creditor.

What I've observed:-
  • People will do almost anything in a life threatening, desperate situation.
  • Your job's principal and yours are not far apart.
  • Your closest friend may sabotage you for selfish reasons.
  • That I do not particularly like this movie.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Sunday 26th December 2O1O


We always play "catch" & "peek-a-boo" at the lift lobby before heading to the class.

Yesterday, we went to the school for the last time. I was a little sad but I told myself that I have to learn to manage my dependency and emotions. Oftenly, I want everything nice to last forever. Plus, I am terrible at goodbyes.
The school will change its syllabus next term. It will not conduct the lessons in Japanese but will focus in English & Mandarin. I had decided to discontinue the class not because of this but rather, I find that Kiki has lost interest in it, and also she has started her playgroup from Monday to Friday. Plus, I would like to do some R&R on Sunday since she's having music on Saturday now. As for the gym, I'm letting her continue with that. So, you can see Kiki has been a busy baby for the past year. She loves the gym most, I can tell you that. Her face lights up in the brightest smile each time she's there. Not to mention she loves all the daring stunts.
She also enjoys the music lessons, she could sing C-D-E-F-G faintly.
Before we left, I brought Kiki to her Japanese teacher, to bid farewell and also to thank her for the past year's coaching. In my opinion, she was the best facilitator and had most control of the lesson-flow. Kiki could rattle a little in Japanese. She could say - Shichi (seven) que & ju ( 9 &10). She could also verbalize - Arigato (sounding, not precisely). We exchanged bows and thanks, then we left. I also thanked the director (for offering the programme) and kept it open that the course of our lives my bring us back if needed. For now, we'll take a break.
As for myself, I learn to "do what's best" and not feel obligated. Because time & money are precious and every day of my life matters.

Christmas at Gong Gong's

Val bought her this colourful maxi dress that spells oriental, summer and ultra-cute.
When I got to my grandpa's place, I couldn't stop gushing for an entire five minutes.
"Aunt Julie, did you see that!? She's sooooooo cute isn't she?!" Like that.... I repeated this several times until aunt Julie said: "Are you nuts? Didn't you buy her this?" I said- no, my friend bought it. Julie said - Are you nuts? Haven't you seen the dress? I said - yaah, but I haven't seen her wearing it and I didn't imagine she'ld look so cute!






The house was so noisy. Noisy is an understatement. It was thundering. We all inherited my grandfather's loud voice, including me. Including Kiki infact. So, you can imagine it was terribly loud in the house with my grandpa talking on top of his lungs and with the TV at high volume.
We had to go out to the corridors to play. Kiki did very well this time. She's beginning to warm up at parties quickly and enjoys herself better this time.


Christmas at the Office

This is the first time in five years that we did a pot-luck party in the office and I can tell you that it was a very good one. You know, JB's mom made the noodles and ngor hiang, (both were delicious and the noodles were fragrant), Peter went three places before he could get hold of the roast duck, Jonathan made Sangria, Henry's missus made Tiramisu, Anna made curry, Iresh bought famous Tiong Bahru fishballs, I bought Sushi from Yamada.

Friday, December 24, 2010

The TINTIN Shop in Singapore

My relative opened "THE TINTIN SHOP", a novelty shop selling all Tintin books, apparels, stationery, watches & collectibles. If you are a fan, I believe you would be thrilled. This is the first in Singapore, with original stock from Belgium.

Address: 56 Pagoda Street Singapore 059215 (MRT station: Chinatown)
Monday to Sunday, 11am to 9pm
info.tintin@gmail.com

Do visit if you're round the corner.

Cheers! Woof!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Christmas Wish

Two things I want for Christmas, can someone get them for me?

1) Ear phones - the one i have is not working on one side.
2) GLEE - CDs or DVD, whatever season, I have none yet.

I find their voices (Glee) are fabulous and the rehash of all the old songs are refreshing.
Kiki danced to Glee while watching the "Madonna" episode with me. She practically was part of the Glee cast. It was wonderful. I held her hands and we danced all over the living hall in circles.
I have a rather strong inkling she might be a performer.
She could recite the key words and enact a short song during her music class and her teacher was fairly surprised as it was only the 3rd or 4th lesson. So,, I would like to go further with this.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Sunday 19th December 2O1O

Gingerbread man
I gave her two pieces of gingerbread man intending to share one with her.
But she ate almost both of them. And in the same order, one bite off the leg from GingerA, one bite off the leg from GingerB. The next legs off both, then the heads. The most precious parts were the bow-ties. She used her index finger to press the cream from its sockets and licked them. We cheered with Milo & coffee respectively. The whole process done sitting on the kitchen floor. It just seemed more fun that way, it was a nice morning anyway.
After which, we headed to the library. Boy, was Kiki excited. She was so chatty, retriving books and passing them to the other mothers there. Playing peek-a-boo behind the tall shelves and giggling excitedly, until the security uncle came to inspect the din but he broke into a wide smile instead. haha. He went off to "hush" the older kids. haha.

I was surprised that we could borrow up to 12 books at one go. This is cool. I threw in three copies of "Parent" magazines just to browse on other parenting tips.
I was also surprised that the library opens Monday to Sunday, from 10am till 9pm. (except on eve of Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year & Public Holidays)
I would surely hang out there much more often from now on since I've just learnt that it is open on Sunday -_-
Next agenda is to practise cooking, so, Maricar and I will start reviewing all the cookbooks in our next visit.

Guests

Maricar's sister also works here as a domestic helper.

She comes over to visit Maricar quite often, about two times in a month at least. Occasionally, she joins Maricar at church since Maricar goes there weekly.

Joy, who used to be a nurse-in-training, is very different from Maricar, almost opposites. She's an extrovert and loves to fill her schedules with lots of social activities.

Most of the time, she would be in a hurry to go off because she frequently meets her other friends and enjoys hanging out with her friends at Lucky Plaza. I've encouraged Maricar to ask her sister to stay on a while longer during her visits as I've always believed that chit-chatting mustn't just be on the surface. Sometimes, just a little more probing would become meaningful.

Kiki seems to enjoy girly-bonding. She sits between the two sisters, listening to their girly-gossips as if she's part of it. Maricar's sister seems to dote on Kiki too. She would read to her, talk to her and carry her. I guess Joy's chatty disposition makes it easy for Kiki to warm up to everytime.

Gifts


Some giant mentos to give away.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Friends & Gang





Steph & Darrel came over with their two girls.
It was a never-before-thing, I mean, I've known her for so long and we've never done dinner in a coffeeshop setting with our families together. The children had a good time playing with the abundant toys we have at home and also the stroll at east coast park. I'm glad that Wynelle liked the porridge we've cooked, which was with cod fish, pork, carrots, potatoe soup stewed over six hours and was surely delicious, yum yum.
Kiki at this developmental stage is somewhat possesive over her toys. She doesn't know how to give up the ones she's playing with to her guests, she clinged on to her favourites - namely the bicycle and the xylophone. I hope she will slowly learn to parallel play and grow into interactive play, although it might be sometime much later.


Friday, December 17, 2010

Variations



Variations



Self-made charts, I am making more of these and have these in powerpoint.
If you want them, please let me know.
Meantime, I've already got these ready for Ryan (22 mths), Wynelle (17 mths) & Nicklaus (6 mths). These are the few children within my vicinity.

Last Sunday, while at my mother-in-law's place, I was telling my MIL how Kiki could recognize pictures and on a spur-of-the-moment, I sketched a wedge of cheese on some scrap paper and held it up to Kiki, half thinking that she wouldn't recognize this ugly-looking cheese as it looked so different from the flash card version she has at home but she surprised me when she said - Cheese!

Wow.
I mean,,, it was a rough sketch and she could recognize it.

Then, the idea came to me to do up a variety of nouns so that her awareness is expanded.
Also, I would also impart to her the concept of relativity as well as concept of context.
For example: you don't just say an elephant is big.
An elephant is big compared to a mouse or a horse but an elephant is not bigger than a blue whale for instance. So, we give variations and range.

In the process of motherhood, I learn, un-learn and re-learn. And I would wish for wisdom, compassion, competency and connectedness.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Home Box Office


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reader

I watched this movie one night last week.
It was a difficult movie to watch but I'm drawn to it.

Janelle's 21st

Most of the time, she was doing this..... cry!

She's fine as long she's five feet away from everybody.


Janelle's 21st

My cousie - Janelle. Better known to us as Siying.
Turning into a promising, young, adult.


Jan

诗情画意

A poetic looking picture, so 诗情画意.

Janelle's 21st


She took a peek at my relatives and cried....

Very focused on playing with the weights that are holding down the balloons.

Singing with actions

Hi Sweetie!

(She's doing the actions for "If you're happy & you know it clap your hands")

"If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it,"
(she's doing the action for "face")

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Changing Shift

New Pumps. (Previously bought from HK)
She's wearing toddler's size 20 - 23 now.
Also known as toddler's size 4 & 5.

She has as many pairs of shoes as me.
This pink number is just nice for the coming Chinese New Year.
Her music teacher commented a couple of times that these pumps are very lovely.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Absurdity

Absurdity is to live in a sweltering climate like Singapore and to feel cold all the time.
Cold in the office, cold on the bus, cold at the mall.

Found this --

Five Most Common Regrets of the Dying,

Number Two- "I wished I didn't work so hard"

Thrive

Sunday's paper was talking about this book by Dan Buettner, who travelled to four of the world's happiest places for his new book "Thrive".

Point #6 says- Socialise at least SIX HOURS a day. Hanging out with friends and family correlates with feelings of happiness.

May I ask -- Where do we find SIX hours a day to socialise???

Bren replied me -- "you are supposed to socialise with your vendors, colleagues, all the people you work with"

Me: "oh! you mean make work social?"

Yes, I really think it does mean make your work fun, make your co-workers your friends. In other words, spend your day at work socializing!

I wonder how it'll work out for me. Let me lighten up a whole lot more. I tend to take work too seriously.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

She called me "Mama"

It has been a long awaited moment, she finally calls me -mom.
I was beginning to worry she doesn't prounce "M". It was contrasting because she could pronounce many other hard-sounding words but apparently not those that begin with M.
She does "grapes" very well, "cheese" and "carrot" too, but not "monkey" nor "milk". Even for eating, she doesn't say "mum mum" like most babies or toddlers.

So, I had shown her the "Mmmmm" mouthing a few times and the day she turned 20-month, she called me - Maamah!

What a joy.

@ The Playground







(Pictures taken last week, using CHINON- that "digital lomo")