Sunday, 16th Jan 2011

I like all these miniature models but if I really have to choose just one, I would say this packet of "jello" is the most fascinating. It is just 1-1/2" big and has many cups of jellos inside the tiny packet. The cups have printed seals some more.... can you see that the printed text are tinier than an ant.

Bathroom set. Kiki took the dipper, stood up and walked to the bathroom.
We were confused. It took us a minute to realise that she was trying to show us that the tiny dipper is of the exact design as the ones we have! Proportionately smaller but exactly the same!

Medicine set

and the pastry set.

Start Early

can't stand my sis....

Don't you just dig that cap-sleeve brief T she's wearing?
She wears this under her sleeveless uniform.
Those under-garment Tees are actually "for boys", I mean, they were labeled as "for boys".
Those meant for girls are all singlets.
Whatever.

Total Fertility Rate in Singapore at All Time Low

Headlines from The Straits Times

Fertility rate at all time low.
Fell from 1.22 (2009) to a historic low of 1.16 (2010)
To curb the problem, foreigners will make up the replacement rate.

I don't know how that will encourage Singaporeans to have more babies.


***
I live just 500 mtrs from a renowned primary school and I can't even be sure I can get Kiki into that school. Already I have been nudged to volunteer at the school two years before Kiki becomes seven in order to be sure to get into the school.

I can say it is a crazy idea but I cannot say I will never do it, because well, I'd never know!
(In this case, can the MP help?)

***
I have not heard of Nanyang Kindergarten until it made news when parents queued for 24 hours to enroll their toddlers into Pre-Nursery, one mother even had her baby with her in the overnight queue. I read up more about that school and discovered that they conduct the nursery classes purely in Mandarin, and they teach "shu fa" (Chinese text writing strokes techniques). No wonder it is such a draw. Chinese is like the big thing here and everywhere else.

Already I am stressed over finding a "better" pre-school for Kiki as my neighbour told me the one Kiki attends now is only for play. She withdrew her daughter from there after 4 month's observation.

***
People always tell me that we grew up well even without all the Gung-ho curriculum and we still managed to read and learn. In other words, they are telling me to be lax about it.
I am not too sure if they have picked up a local school text book or worksheet and attempt it.

***
The heat from our academic system is the main reason I had delayed family plans.
I need to equip myself with time and resources to bring up my child in the best manner I can. This is human's nature or at least inherent in many Singaporeans. Nature is nature but nurture is variable.

***
Even with these situations, we hope to have another baby.
So much so that this morning, I dreamt that I was pregnant.

***

CNY - 2O11 (prelude)

Video killed the Radio Star,

E-cards killed the Greeting Cards.

Besides my maternal relatives, NOBODY else I know sends Chinese New Year greeting cards. Nobody. It's quite a feat finding nice and cheap CNY cards these days. I mean, the prices range from 90 cents to 2 dollars each, and I normally need like 30 pieces. Luckily my sis managed to find some good ones at reasonable price. That is after we gave up the hunt and was contemplating to DIY some cards or forgo it this year.

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

http://www.ohopenhouse.com/
The OH! Open House is an art tour organised by the National Arts Council. Urban Redevelopment Authority, National Heritage Board & few other sponsors.
Five very kind souls volunteered their homes to allow artists to install their artwork and let the public tour their homes. Real, living space smacked in the middle of a town none other than the Marine Parade!

This was a chance of a lifetime for us to explore and learn more about our estate, at the same time, introduce Kiki to installation & conceptual art.

We throughly enjoyed the tour, please catch this if you are keen as they're having this till next weekend only. (8th, 9th, 15th, 16th Jan 2011)


Did you know that the first Bengawan Solo shop was born in 1979 after the ministry of environment shut down the founder's home kitchen in her HDB flat? She then started her first shop under the block.

This place has all the hot topics from 328 Katong Laksa to the Seaviews and the highly sorted after Tao Nan Primary School that purportedly drove up property prices here.

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

We didn't know that the tour starts at 4pm and we had 30 minutes in hand to digest.
So we went to the little ice cream parlor located just at the corner of the Marine Parade CC.
It was an interesting cafe, the Gelati (plural for Gelato) were marvelous. Really rich and wonderful. We had the Butterscotch, Oreo & Nutella (!) and the Passion Fruit.

Besides the very good gelati, the place is just brimming with artsy air. There were many displays on some painters' work which we feasted our eyes on and tried not to look too wowed. They sell templates of cloth for you to do Batik painting, cross stitch, collage, and even plain, white umbrellas with hand-drawn outline of Dinoursaurs for you to fill out with paint. etc etc.

From the sound of this, it looks like this cafe will become our hangout in no time.

278 Marine Parade Road#01-03 Marine Parade Community Club S449282
Tel:63456563
Opening Hours - Daily: 9.30am - 10.00pm
http://www.scoop-of-art.com

JUST LOOK AT THIS.

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

I've never really went to any high floors to see the view and had no expectations when I saw these but hey, it's cool.

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

(Above) You are actually looking at mirrors on the floor. It looks as though you're looking down into a room but it is really the floor. All the items you see - the table, lamps, cushion, books, TV are all installed upside down in the room. The mirrors reflect whatever that are in the room, hence the "depth" effect. It is scary in the sense-- it's like you're hovering on the ceiling of the room.

There's an old fashioned mama shop at the void deck that employs an "electronic eye". Can you spot the close circuit camera on top?

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

This bird cage does not look like this when you see it with your eyes. It looks distorted and out-of-shape. But when you snap a picture of it, you get to see it like a real, 3D thing.

Does it look like the black cat is resting on a raised platform?

There is no raised platform. It's flat. It's just an illusion.

Look how the real grills extend all the way to the left.

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

This is the stud ring of the hole on the canvas.
What I've focused here is a cushion that says "Relax" on it.

The artist goes about doing her regular stuff, works on her laptop, moves to her typewrite and starts clicking away, plays a few tunes on the piano, lazes on the floor. etc. The interesting thing is that you watch her by peeking through some holes on a huge canvas that seperates the space she's in, and you're on the outside.

This whole idea / concept is really intirguing. Even Kiki watched silently and intently on what was happening behind the veil. The scence that was being acted out is so dream-like, you're like watching a dream, a very puzzling dream because the subject is not you nor someone you know but she was just going about doing non-important things and the very fact that she was "unaware" of you watching her makes you (or at least me! & Kiki) glued to her.

(this is taken by putting the lens through the hole, almost like having crossed over to her world / dream)

This is taken from a distance. (can you feel the fuzziness? dreaminess?)

OH! (Open House) 8th January 2O11

Arump.... the Papa joined us for dinner.

The tour took 2 hours instead of the planned 45 minutes or an hour.

This is because there was quite a bit of walking, plus every group that came after us had to wait for the group before them to finish touring the displays. It is understandable as it is HDB flats we're visiting, hence they could only take groups of ten at each house. Nevertheless, it was an interesting tour and I really enjoyed myself a lot. I hope that at a certain level, it has enriched our minds and I surely hope it has enriched Kiki's mind too. We were all tired from the walking but in high spirits. I look forward to more such excursions. I thank the organisers, artists, volunteers, sponsors for bringing this interesting event. Thank you!

Delayed Telecast

Jig Saw Puzzle Jumbo Size

I thought over this for what I felt was like 10 minutes before buying this because I wasn't sure if Kiki is ready for jigsaw puzzles (she may just chew on them, like how she chewed out a BIG (really big) chunk of card board when she was barely five months old (my negligence! forgive me!)) Also I thought that at $23.90, this is quite costly. But I relented because I find that jumbo die-cut puzzles are quite rare. (I'm not sure but I really haven't seen much of these) and so I've decided to get this. There are only two designs, one of a lion and the other a car.
Oh, at John Little, in case you're wondering where to get them.

commercial break:

thsi is jsut to prove to yuo that eevn i misspell mnay words in thsi sentcene, yuo can sitll read it.

CNY - 2O11 (prelude)

This looks like a long, Indian, casual Kebaya.
I like ethnic clothing.

CNY - 2O11 (prelude)

Ahem* (clears throat), I am so loud. Kind of embarrassed to be so loud sometimes but I can't help feeling very at ease carrying these styles.

I've settled all my CNY clothing in one shop - the Desigual.
I was making my way home when I passed the shop. After a quick browse, I realised that many of the selections suit me. I mean, they are not new to me, I've been buying them since,,, three years back, but this trip was the most fruitful. I'd bought an astonishing number of pieces. Five to be exact.

Just look at the awkward overlapping details. I love it. I love everything that is seemingly out-of-place. Maybe it syncs with me too well.

Oh, by the way, Desigual means "It is not the same" (in Spanish).
The sales staff explained that although each design may be the same, they are not identical.
The slight difference is that the alignment and placement of the fabric at each joint are random.
You know, like you make ten quilt blankets from broken pieces of left over fabric, all ten blankets though are blankets and on appearance look alike, are not identical. Get it?

http://world.desigual.com/

CNY - 2O11 (prelude)

I am aware that the Chinese and Japanese may not be best of friends and wearing a Japanese inspired print during the Chinese New Year may not be the best of ideas. Luckily,,,,,,, we're in Singapore where this is not much of a controversy and there's no pressure to be culturally correct in this sense. So........ ok lah!
This is really quite pretty.

You know how sometimes you may feel that your actions doesn't matter or that there's no diff if you're not the tipping point in a revolutional change for the better, I wanna tell you to stop thinking that way. You are the element of change, you are the element at cause. It all begins with you.

Gosh. I think our government's campaign worked too well-- I keep hearing this slogan in my head: "Courtesy begins with me".

My god. I googled on our national courtesy campaign and discovered that the slogan was used from 1987 to 1992. No wonder it's INGRAINED in me.

Make Up

I'm known to use the same brand of stuff for years, till they're upgraded, re-packaged or even out of production. I am quite adventurous in trying new products but when I find suitable ones, I'll stick to them loyally. For two decades I've used The Body Shop foundation & loose powder but I've found that they have lagged in quality. Now, I use this L'EGERE All-in-one B*B Cream and its loose powder. (from Korea) This is my second tube. You can get these from John Little.
Additional eye colours,, don't know what brand these are. For trial.

881 The Musical

<<881>> The Musical, will be in town.

DATE 15-24 Apr 2011 Tue - Sat, 8pm Fri (22 April 2011), Sat & Sun, 3pm

DURATION Approx 2 hrs 30 mins INTERVAL Approx 15 mins

VENUE(S) Esplanade Theatre 1 Esplanade Drive

Oops! Excuse Me.

I am ashamed to tell you of my boorish behaviour.
I don't know how it happened but I had always been this careless.
I forget that I have aged, I still sit around at any convenient space like I do when I was a teen. Sometimes I sit by the edge of a building or lean against a wall just to observe the scene.
Bren & I were just sitting on this pavement watching Kiki play at the playground when she came down and slowly sat on the pavement (floor) and gave us the "I can do it too" look.
Gosh........ we really have to be mindful of our behaviours.

A Humble Little Shop @ AMK

May I recommend you this wonderful cake the next time you need a cake for any of your happy occasions- The Lychee Martini.
It is very refreshing, wonderful sweet scent, with soft cream.
I heard the Black Forest is also a hot favourite.
However, I have to inform that many of the cakes have liquor in them. So they are not suitable for toddlers. Other than that, I trust that you will fall in love with them.
What's more? They do delivery too.
This 500 gm cost $23 + $4.
http://www.pgcake.com/SpecialOcassions.aspx (ordering online)
http://www.pgcake.com/

After having a very thin slice of the cake at a recent birthday session, I became a fan.
Ordered one to let Bren & Maricar savour. More reasons to call for a cake from now =)

2O1O- Of Mammoth Trials & Tribulations - the idelogy of a greater good

I must admit that 2O1O was one of the toughest years I've ever had, with many personal challenges and a journey to the abyss of darkness, not knowing if I would ever emerge.

I shudder even as I think about it and I am glad that it has passed.

Of course it isn't easy to put it in perspective even now because it was one hell-of-a curveball that life threw at me. You know, they say- Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, is so true but what they didn't tell you is that you could either be negatively-stronger or positively- stronger. I am real. I am a normal, living person who may have more angst than the average Joe. I am the dance of marrying light & dark, I am the sounding board bringing forth a fraction of what's on my mind. I dare and I dare not. I be mindful of myself, I be mindful that many friends come to me for directions, for inspirations. I never fail to know that words hurt and words heal. What I had forgotten was the tone. (delivery of speech). With every triumph, I celebrate. With every mishap, I reflect on myself and make amends. Like I've said, I am real. I am a normal, living person who may have more angst than the average Joe.

So anyway,

I look forward to 2011.
I look forward to more cooking,
I look forward to more painting.
I look forward to parenting,
I look forward to another baby.

I look forward to achieving my goals,
I look forward as life unfolds.

I look forward to more interactions,
I look forward to more meditations.

I look forward letting life unfold.

Thank you. It's been great.