Oktober Overdued

Chipmunk Face Day 3
Sunday, 14th October 2007

It is the 3rd day of my wisdom tooth extraction. With chipmunkness and deformed face shape still visible, I was raring to go out with deardear as I haven’t seen him for the whole week. It was also one of the rare Sundays that I don’t have tuition till the evening.

Once kh saw me, he looked at me straight and burst out, “Hahaha… chipmunk face chipmunk face!”

I didn’t dare to imagine what he would have said if he saw me the day before.

He said that my face shape is deformed with one side sagging down.



But at least I made a good effort in trying to mask the ugliness.

From swelling and ugly bruising…


To only swelling…


Chipmunk face didn’t bother about her stitches and went to eat hou liao (good food) with cruel boy. People kept on staring at me but I ji tao heck care.

Shrimp salad… YUM!!!


Crayfish pasta


Mixed fruits chocolate fondue.


Then, we went shopping. Didn’t really shop la.. just jalan jalan.


I enjoyed myself. Kh is really my de-stress therapy.




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A NO-WORK off day
Wednesday, 17th October 2007

I accompanied mum to the polyclinic for the routine check ups and follow ups.

Someone called my name. I thought I heard wrongly coz I would never bump into anyone I know at polyclinics.

Coincidence of all coincidence, it was tiff!

It seems that my mum was more happy to see her than I was. If you’ve been reading, you would know that tiff and I were the first friends in primary 1 and very good friends too. Hence, my mum knows her and was excited to see her.

Don’t be mistaken, tiff, I was very happy to see you too!

Despite having persistent rashes, Tiff had to rush back to work but we arranged to meet up later in the day at Kinokuniya for some book –shopping.

I met up with apr for a quick lunch as we were both in town for our separate appointments. Talk about coincidence again.

It was our first time at Soba So Good.


Huge portions… A bowl of soba accompanies every set meal.


So we had soba on top of rice as the main bulk of the meal. It’s Soba No Good for pro-Atkins-dieters.





After apr went off for her dental appointment, I was left to shop alone while waiting for tiff. I wanted to buy so many things but I had to control. The feeling of having an almost empty bank account is no fun. I felt so restrained. I’m one who can save very well but once I see something I really like, I don’t mind spending. Oh by the way, I didn’t go broke la. I just went to invest almost my entire savings but sshh… won’t say what it is first… must make money first then can disclose.

I was looking for more working clothes but went on a Calvin Klein trying frenzy instead.

I like these clothes…


But my favourite fitting room try of the day would be this CK fur hooded jacket.



It’s nicer than all the marshmallow fur fur Abercrombie jackets but the price is a whooping $500+. I love it but I would have been really crazy to buy it. I ended up buying a shirt instead. It’s my most expensive shirt to date. Ya, it’s expensive to me… remember, I’m one who can save very well?

Instead of going book-shopping with tiff, we only stopped by borders and kino for a while. Hahaha…

Our sausage and rosti dinner at Swiss German Sausage Bar


I must say that this is quite good and the price is reasonable. I did not know about this stall as I never liked eating at the crowded Taka Basement.

Tiff, I say you must get outta that place real soon. You are still very funny but your energy level is really depleting man.


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Sparkling, Clean teeth
Friday, 19th October 2007

I went to remove the stitches on my gum. I was a little nervous for I wondered if the dentist would go, “Now, let’s see what’s under here. Donuts… chocolates… crayfish… pasta… prawn… soba… tempura… mushroom… sausage… …”

I also washed and scaled my teeth. For once in 13 years, the back of my teeth became so white. The smoothness was indescribable. I kept using my tongue to feel the smoothness behind my teeth.

SHIOK!

I sure hope I don’t get addicted to visiting the dentist.


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Grill-Out at Sunset Way
Sunday, 21st October 2007

A small bunch of us jc friends met up for dinner at Grill-Out, Sunset Way.

If you’ve never heard of Sunset Way, let’s shake hands. Sunset Way is an area of restaurants, cafes and bars situated in Clementi. Tucked within and under HDB flats, it exudes uniqueness. Where can you find such a place in sunny Singapore, I ask you?

I don’t like the pseudo classy alfresco dining. Dining outdoors is really uncomfortable in our humid climate. The place was so dark and it didn’t help that our candles were constantly blown out by the occasional gusts of wind. The waiter had to slam a torch on our table.

Their Black Angus ribeye steak is quite appetizing but that was the first time I didn’t feel full after having steak. I wonder what was wrong.



Other dishes my friends had…

I dunno the name of this




Tam’s dinner. Some yellow tail thingy with wasabi.


Tam & me


We had a mini birthday session for caleb, tam and jw.


I heard from my friends that this place had very good reviews. Hmm… The Black Angus ribeye was delicious no doubt but my friends and I agreed that we would not head there anytime soon. It has probably gotta do with the ambience.


Next stop -- Wala Wala.

The other jo – the funny funny bitch…


Oh! We haven’t been calling each other “biatch” for a long time! She’s always sooooo busy too.

This jo – the unfunny biatch




I haven’t seen reg for a long time too.


Haha… I was playing around and got this…

Looks like we’ve got no nose but I like the effect.

Group shots









I hope the 29th December class party would materialise. I really can’t wait t see everybody again. Jw in charge, should be no sweat la huh.

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Another Goodbye
Tuesday, 23rd October 2007

It is apr’s last day at hq. I’m really gonna miss this same wavelength bimbotic buddy at work. I don’t care lor. We must still meet up every now and then hor?

A giant Pooh Bear Smarties for the people in our room


Got pooh bear slide show camera wor.


So cute. Reminds me of those toys of the 80s.

A sweet and unique handmade card from her


Why is this card sweet? Coz she was so thoughtful to add Simba and her stumpy tail in the card. All the words written in her ugly handwriting was sweet too. Well, I sure hope she’ll get married soon so we can be her jie mei. Don’t play us out hor?

I did not bring the card home. When I showed my family members the photos of the card, nobody could figure out what that was. Even after I’ve pointed out the ears, head, body and tail, they still could not make out that it was Simba. Only clever kh could. He took a few seconds to scrutinise the shape and proclaimed confidently that it was Simba.

Photos of us





I was inspired by the effects of the photos on apr’s camera with spoilt screen and came up with these…













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No Halloween Party Nevermind
Saturday, 27th October 2007

What was supposed to be a wild Halloween cheonging with the bimbo sisters as discussed a few months back turned out to be nothing. I was quite sian of the whole last minute changes initially. I’ve already had a simple and cheap “costume” in my mind. Nevermind, save for next year. I hope that this Wednesday would be fun!

Went to vivocity with kh. We’ve only been to vivo 3 times so far coz kh hates the place. I hope he begins to like the place coz I love to buy clothes from nichii.

Had dinner at the place w/o any queue: Aji by Hanabi









The best dish of all!


Oh yes today would be the last time I see my favourite P2 boy. His withdrawal reason was that his mum was too busy to bring him for tuition. Why is it that I don’t feel sad anymore?


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Recently, I feel like I’ve been stretched to the max.

My work is never-ending. I know sometimes I can only blame myself for always trying to improve on the materials and giving myself more work.

Just 3 weeks ago, I pia my phonics course outline at one shot after doing some on and off research. The franchise person was very pleased with the unique and creative approach. I was like a dog with two tails when I heard that and felt extremely smug about my work. Then just a few days later, they had a change of plan. My creative approach would not be very feasible if they would want to maximise enrolment. I felt like all my efforts were wasted. I had to come up with a new plan and I’m not even halfway through.

The next bomb dropped on me. I have to revamp the whole of primary English curriculum to fit the franchise people’s taste. Ok la, it’s not just to suit the franchise people. Our co will benefit from the revamp in the long run too. I have all due respect for this lady as I could see that she is not only a passionate educator, she is one who is good at sales and marketing too. Her ideas are also quite brilliant. However, to revamp the whole curriculum now is a bit too much for me. Without, the revamp, I’m already doing a lot of modifications as you can see how much time I spent on work.

Now with this revamp, I will be having an additional colleague to help me but I wonder if that is really enough. My superior said we work hard now so end of next year can relax a bit. I was thinking if I wanna work so hard now, I will feel like staying till the end of next year. If not, I work so hard in revamping and leave after that a bit wasted right? I won’t get to enjoy the fruits of my labour. Hmm… … But I’ve already missed the chance for that interview.

Besides work, I had intensive tuition for my pri school tutees for their final exams right after my sec sch tutee. During the weekdays, I would try to leave earlier from work to give tuition whenever I did not have night classes to teach. On Sundays, I would be teaching the bro and sis 3 to 4 sessions. By the time I reached home, the sun had set and I was really quite sian to continue working at home. This went on for 3 weeks. Giving a 2-week-break for my sec tutee wasn’t a break for me as I used the additional time to teach the pri sch tutees. Now that the pri sch tutees’ exams are over and I’m giving them a break, my sec sch tutee’s tuition has to resume.

Do I sound like I’m dreading all this? Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t my feeling. I enjoy giving tuition. It’s just that I feel like I need a break.

I’ve informed both tutees’ mum that I may go for a holiday and they said by all means. I really yearn to go on a holiday but with all the additional revamping workload and sudden obligation not to go on leave, I don’t know if I can take a break at the end of this year.

You know how I like to teach the cute cute C right? Ok for easy reference, I’ll call him big C and his P1 sister, little C. Big C always does very cute things. Even though he is gonna be in P6 next year, he is still as cute as when I first taught him in P2.

As for his sister, I don’t really like teaching her as she’s really very naughty and annoying every now and then. She knows she’s annoying and she enjoys it. So can you imagine how exasperating it is to teach her at times? Luckily she doesn’t exhibit this habit at all times. When she is well-behaved, she is SUPER well-behaved. So guai and cute that I would hug her and praise her for the good attitude.

There was a period of time last week when their mum went overseas. She wrote a letter for her mum. She asked me to read it and I corrected her grammar and spelling mistakes. She immediately grabbed her pencil and eraser to correct all her mistakes. On most other days, she doesn’t even show such eagerness when I correct her mistakes in her school work and assessment books.

After resealing the letter, little C said, “I tell you a secret. All the letters I write to mummy, she never read. She all put one side and when I go and see, she never open.”

My heart ached when I heard that. I assured her that her mum had probably read and resealed the letters.

Anyway, this was what she wrote:





Not exactly in perfect English but I was really touched by it.

What’s more, Little C did all the past year school exam papers conscientiously and scored Band 1 for all the Mathematics papers. She “collected” and packed them all neatly so she could show her mum when she came back. When it was 10 minutes to the end of the last session before her paper the next day, she insisted on doing another paper to “collect” for her mum to see.

The night their mum returned home, little C immediately grabbed the stack of exam papers and dashed out. From inside the room, I heard her mother rebuke her for running out during tuition.