when i know that the sec 3 students are going to Army Open House 2017 for a Learning Journey, i immediately volunteered to go as an accompanying teacher.
going to Army Open House 2017 holds extra significance for me as i just got into the Mindef Reserves, and i really want to go there to relive my memories when i was a NSF and NSman.
was super glad to see my RSM, as well as my tank commander course mate. the last i saw him was like 10 years ago?! he is now a warrant officer. and he is the only regular left from our batch.
this is the leopard tank. i was trained on the sm1 tank. is quite a pity that the sm1 tank commanders who ORD-ed never get the chance to be converted into leopard tank commanders.
and i also bumped into muammar, my ex student from the previous workplace. he is a very good football player and was in the sch team. he was also my house captain. so happy to see him again. saw a few ex students from my current workplace as well. :)
glad to be able to visit the army open house, with such good weather (although it was extremely hot but hot weather is definitely better than rainy weather), as well as with fewer people. once the army open house is open to the public on weekends, the crowd will definitely be 100 times crazier!!
my wonderful aunt gave me a equarius hotel staycation last saturday. equarius hotel is at rws, and is the most atas hotel out of all the rws hotels.
the room is big. really very big. the toilet is also very big. went to agoda to check the price, and it is 450 per night.
yuanze had a really good time climbing and rolling around on the bed. :)
the pool is good. it is one of the largest outdoor pools in the world. and there are suites that have their own jacuzzi pool. damn kua zhang.
they also have an underwater suite where you can see the fishes, sharks and stingrays from sea aquarium. it cost 2100 per night. omg. so kua zhang. with that amount of money i can fly to taiwan for a vacation.
put yuanze with my mum in the afternoon. darling and i went for a rare date with darling. we are going to Yan Restaurant at National Gallery for lunch, thanks to NS50 giving me a dining voucher at Yan Restaurant that is worth $100. wooo hoooo.
we reached the restaurant at 1125 am. so we waited outside because it only opens at 1130 am. but it only opened at 1140 am. tsk tsk. disappointing.
but i must say the interior of the restaurant is very nice. reminds us of the 8 restaurant at macau, which is a 1-star michelin dim sum restaurant.
the manager told us our 5-course lunch consists of dim sum, soup, main course, wasabi prawn and dessert.
the 莲藕排骨汤 and mango pomelo dessert not very instagram worthy so i didnt take pics. hahahahaha.
at night when yuanze was asleep, i hugged darling very tightly. so thankful to have her as my wife. i was so lost and so flustered during that eventful vesak day when she was not with me. i count my blessings that she is by my side, every minute and every second.
happy mother's day to you darling.
and of course, happy mother's day to my mum.
#世上只有妈妈好
my mum is on leave this whole week, and she volunteered to take care of yuanze. so we decided to put yuanze with my family from yesterday (the vesak day holiday) until this saturday.
the game plan is that darling will leave tampines in the afternoon. then i will stay with yuanze for a night so that if he becomes cranky at night, at least i will still be around if my mum cannot cope.
unfortunately, the game plan failed terribly yesterday night.
at 630 pm, my in-laws miss yuanze alot and my FIL told darling that he want to facetime with yuanze.
and so the facetime happened. what shocked both me and darling was that the moment yuanze saw darling, my in-laws and enxuan, he gave a very sad face and was about to cry. then when enxuan saw his sad face, she also gave a sad face.
in the evening my parents gave me a little shock, saying that they are going to a wake later at night. which means i will be alone with yuanze. actually i am totally ok with being alone with yuanze, as i am alone with him before, and i still can manage feeding him, changing his diapers, and putting him to sleep.
so at 730 pm i start to feed him milk. prepared 150 ml for him and he drank 140 ml and didnt want to drink the remaining 10 ml despite several persuasions and change in locations. we always need to change a few permutations in order to "scam" him in drinking his milk, for example prepare toys, mimick sounds of animals, read storybook, change his location from bedroom 1 to bedroom 2 to bedroom 3 and to living room, etc etc.
745 pm start to put him to sleep, and to my relief, within 10 minutes he fell asleep. the funny thing is that he was sucking his pacifier very hard and i dunno whether is he feeling hungry again. then i went about to do some chores such as cleaning his milk bottles and sterilising the milk bottles.
810 pm i peek at him. still sound asleep. so i went to the sofa to take a look at my hp. and at 815 pm he suddenly cried. so i rush to the yaolan and start to shake his yaolan and comfort him. it didnt get any better. his cries was getting louder and louder.
i was feeling helpless and at 834 pm i called darling for SOS. on the phone to speaker mode, and she start to sing twinkle twinkle little star. that did calm him down, but only for about 5 min. and the crying continued. so i carried him in my arms and swayed him, following exactly what darling did whenever he cry, but it did not work. he was still crying at the top of his voice. called darling for help again. on the phone to speaker mode again. but it did not help. so i told darling to come down to tampines.
and then i called both my parents for SOS. and both of them didnt pick up the phone. and they took my car to go to the wake because my little sis took my dad's car. GG liao lor. because the moment when i told darling to come down, we decided to bring yuanze back to woodlands. no more staying at tampines.
darling suggested bringing him to my parents' bedroom to on the aircon. because all the while he is sleeping in aircon environment. in tampines he sleeps in the dining room which there is no air con. so i brought him to my parents room and on the air con. then darling also told me to play a particular video of him and enxuan interacting, which he likes watching. so i played the video for him to watch, and for 5 minutes, he stopped crying. but after that, he start to cry again.
and i dunno whether is he hungry a not. so with him in one arm, i made milk with my right hand. so i created quite a mess. feed him, but he dun want to drink. so darling said why he suck the pacifier so loudly is because his gums was very itchy due to teething.
and thank goodness darling finally arrived in her uber car at 915 pm. and off we went to woodlands.
so here it is. the worst 45 minutes of my life.
the results of syf are out.
for my current workplace, the performing arts CCAs are: band, guzheng, english drama and dance.
out of these four CCAs, only guzheng got distinction, and is their first ever distinction since the school started (15 years only lah, not say very long). the rest of the CCAs got accomplishment.
let's talk more about dance, since i am one of the teachers in-charge. to be honest, at the start of the year, i do not have very high hopes for them. at the syf exchange at one of the schools in the north, they step up their level, probably due to the pressure from other schools.
and one week before the actual syf, when they were doing the dance in their costumes, their performance up another level as compared to the one at syf exchange. i was surprised.
and one day before the syf, they showed me the true emotions of the dance, which touched me and the choreographers. the main choreographer cried in front of them while doing the debrief, and it also sparked a crying frenzy among the dancers. i guess this is how beautiful and how powerful dance is.
and here it is. 26 syf dancers. with 4 instructors. and 4 teachers in-charge. can you spot the two thorns among the roses? hahahahahaha. i think we are a very privileged cca. our dance club is actually very big, with 40 over students. but sadly, quite alot of dancers are really cmi in their dance technique. so instead of involving everyone, we decided to involve 26 strong dancers. although to be honest, our choreographer also had a hard time choosing the 26 of them. choose 15 to 20 is no problem. but choose the remaining is a big problem.
but i must say that all 26 of them had really improved alot in their emotions, dance technique and stage presence ever since the start of this syf journey. it really heartens me, as a teacher in-charge and as a dance practitioner, seeing them grow so much within this few months.
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it has been 7 months since both me and darling became parents to yuan ze. it has really been a tough, challenging but wonderful journey for both of us. especially for darling, who is the one only able to coax yuanze when he gets cranky in the middle of the night. i am really very thankful to have such a wonderful wife and such a loving mother to our child.
here's a #throwback to last sunday, when we brought yuanze to my younger sister's condo to swim. my little sis bought that float for $39.95 at toys r us and she claimed that this is her best buy of the year. i have to agree! yuanze really enjoys playing in the pool. look at how happy he is. :)
