saturday post

watched this with darling. it is a damn good movie. go watch if you havent! 

i survived four months in a new workplace. next week will be MYE already, and i can have a short break from the normal lessons. 

the sucky thing about MYE at the new workplace is that... the PE teachers have to change into formal office wear. the reason being that during MYE there are no PE lessons. oh well... 

i shall stock up on my office wear tomorrow. gives me a good reason for some retail therapy. :D

海底捞 @ 313 Somerset

tried 海底捞 for the very first time, with my family. 

海底捞 is a steamboat restaurant, and there are only 2 outlets in singapore. one at 313 somerset and the other one at clarke quay. the little sis said the one at 313 somerset is better because the restaurant is bigger and there is a higher chance to get a table. having said that, she still have to make a reservation one month in advance. if you did not make a reservation and want to try your luck walking in, you have to wait at least 2 hours. -.-'''

海底捞 not only provides very good ingredients for the steamboat, they also provide very good service. they take pride in the quality of their service staff. for example they have a very big waiting area for customers, with seats provided for them, and even snacks to fill up their stomachs temporarily. 

inside the restaurant, the waiters/waitresses pay attention to every single detail, for example giving us zip loc bags to put our hps, giving hair bands to ladies with long hair, providing aprons, providing hot towels, constantly filling up our glasses with drinks without us requesting, etc etc. 

you must order their 甩面 and this guy will perform defy gravity stunts with the noodle dough. your jaws will drop when seeing him perform. 

海底捞，i will be back! :)

Admirals' Run

this year is our first Admirals' Run, held at japanese & chinese garden. 

last year was known as Cross Country, and was held at Woodlands Waterfront, unfortunately the moment when everyone reached there, it rained cats and dogs, and the whole event has to be cancelled. 

thank goodness the weather today was very good. and the event was a success. the P messaged my hod to convey his best wishes to the pe department, thanking us for making this event a memorable experience. :)

i really like the PE department here. starting to form very close bonds with all the PE teachers. after the event we went to brotzkeit for lunch and we chit chat until 5 pm. we were so busy during the whole event that we didnt manage to take a dept photo. haiyaaaaaaaaaaaaa. 

anyway here are the pics!

from left to right: ms chin huijing (year head for lower sec); ms suba (assistant year head for sec 2); myself (year manager for sec 2, aka the discipline level coordinator for sec 2); mr jamil (chairperson for the parent support group). my duty for the event was the starter, meaning that i have to start off 9 different waves of runners. and... dun you like our pe dept tshirt? we are known as FAT - Fit Athletic Teachers :) 

presenting to you, the Student Development Team of ADSS! my P is the one on the extreme left. the one in yellow at the back is my VP. the VP was a recipient of President's Award for Teachers. mai siao sao. and he was the one who asked me to be the year manager for sec 2, when i reported to the school in dec 2015. and i dunno why i agreed. (上了贼船)

tuesday post

today i took a break from work, because i am called up for a reservist briefing at tampines safra. 

when i was staying at tampines, the previous briefings were always being done at yishun safra. now i stay at woodlands, the briefing is done at tampines. 

so anyway, this briefing is actually for our 10th ICT. it means that it will be my final reservist briefing, and after the 10th ICT, i have MR-ed and i do not need to go for reservist anymore! yessss!

on 9th july there will be a batallion cohesion at tampines safra. 

11th july to 18th july will be the ICT, and on 16th july will be our MR parade at Singapore Sports Hub, as part of the NE Show. 

looking forward to this significant event!

saturday post

darling made delicious pancakes for breakfast. :)

served with blueberry jam, honey and bananas. i am a satisfied man. i am also a blissful man. 

the niece was too bored at home and so mum in-law brought the niece to our house. so we entertained her throughout the whole morning and afternoon. dad in-law popped by after lunch and da bao-ed carrot cake, chendol, cheng tng and mee qian kueh for us. what a nice way to spend a saturday afternoon. :)

after that darling and i went to bugis+ to catch The Jungle Book. 

the movie is nice! we like it alot! 

the last programme of the day is supporting my little sis, who is the playwright for the theatre show 'The Inheritance'. the show resonates with me very closely because... my little sis wrote the script based on huanyang's love story. HAHAHAHAHAHA. i was really engaged throughout the whole show. and the 3 cast are very good! 

so proud of you tan yuyang! :)

friday post

today was the previous workplace 30th anniversary. 

when i first saw this pic i was in awe. it must have took alot of effort to coordinate everything. then when i knew that it was mr hafiz who did all this, any query that i had was solved immediately. there is no other person more suitable than him for this job. kudos to you mr hafiz! 

happy 30th anniversary tpss. thank you for all the good memories from 2007 to 2008, and 2010 to 2015. i am very thankful to the previous workplace for giving me so many opportunities to shine, and recognising me for who i am. i am thankful to all the colleagues and students that i met, and these are the people who make my life as a teacher so enriching and colourful. 

today was also the last day of CCA for the sec 4 and 5 students at my current workplace, as they are officially stepping down to study for their national exams. 

we had a commendation ceremony for the dance club's graduating seniors. i triggered their tear ducts by giving a very emo speech accompanied by a very emo background music (that's what i have been doing for the past few years for my show choir graduating seniors). after the ceremony my colleague came to tell me that i looked like i was about to cry. hahahahahaha. probably i had forged a strong bond with them within a short span of 4 months. 

i admire their creativity for throwing up their dance pants in the air. hahahahahaha. 

monday post

went to esplanade to support my show choir alumni. they are performing for deniece's concert, and they are in the opening item 'at the end of the day'. 

'at the end of the day' was the competition piece for b-dazzled 2013. it was the most memorable item for me out of the 3 years of b-dazzled because it was my first time bringing them for this show choir festival as the teacher overall in-charge. 

from left to right: 

celine, graduated in 2013. she was the secretary. 

wenxin, graduated in 2013. she was the vice-president. 

brandon, graduated in 2014. 

chauli, graduated in 2014. she was the president. 

alya, graduated in 2015. she was the dance captain. 

great to see all of you again! do continue to perform and relive your passion for the stage! :)

sunday post

this morning i have to reach admiralty mrt station at 8 am to meet my dancers. they are performing for the CDAC Official Opening. the guests of honour for the opening are mr ong ye kung, acting minister for ministry of education, and mr amrin amin, parliament secretary for ministry of home affairs. 

our rehearsal time on stage was from 830 am to 9 am, and at 820 am, mr amrin appeared at the stage area! we spoke to each other and we even shook hands. 

there were altogether 11 dancers performing, and they are all sec 4/5 students, so this will be their last performance before they step down. 

personally i think their performance still has lots of room for improvement. but on the account that this was their first time doing a hip hop item, and all of them are from modern contemp/malay dance background, i shall not be so demanding. 

anyway xuehong also came down to watch them. he went to pay his last respects to derek's mum in the morning, and msg-ed me that he is somewhere near my house. so i asked him to come and find me and he agreed and we did some catching up. impromptu meeting up is always the best. :)

yesterday night the niece was admitted into KKH because she had chest infection and high fever. so this afternoon we went to visit her and to our surprise (not), she was very cheerful and in high spirits! 

get well soon niece! anyway the niece was so cheerful partly because she had her own private ward, and she can go to a big air conditioned living room where there's toys and cars. she is treating it like a staycation. :p

nus chinese dance

dedicating this post solely to nus chinese dance, because merllie happened to read the blog post that i put up a few hours ago, and congratulated me on going to become a father at the NUSCD 老人 group chat, and made the group chat lively again. 

merllie, if you so happen to read this (which i know you will), thank you for being such a faithful and loyal reader of my blog, even though the updating of the blog has become less frequent. 

i first joined nus chinese dance in 2007, coming in with a reputation as a wushu exponent rather than a dancer. and the person who pulled me in is none other than xuehong. 

after Dance Reflections 2007, i continued dancing all the way until 2016, simply because of two reasons:
1) my passion in performing on stage
2) the strong friendship that was built with everybody

last sunday was the 庆功宴 for Space. Time. Mind, and it was held at UTown Dance Studio. to my amazement, i realised that i was actually the longest serving dancer. the other two surviving dancers from my era are bin gege and zhunian. 

and i also realise that i am not as attached to the troupe as before. there is nothing wrong with the current batch of undergraduate dancers. the main problem is with me, because i was not very sociable with the dancers. 

hence it is time for me to end this journey with nuscd. my close friends are no longer dancing. they are all busy with their careers and busy starting their own family. i myself is embarking on my next phase of life. there are no more reasons to motivate me to travel to nus for dance practises. so last sunday, i told DLS that Space. Time. Mind will be my last performance with nuscd. and she thanked me for all my contributions over the past few years. :)

i have no regrets joining nuscd, where i made many good friends. so by making use of this SPACE, let us embark on a time machine as we travel through TIME and refresh our MIND on the many wonderful memories that we had from 2007 until now. 

Psyche 2008 庆功宴. i think this was at michael's condo function room. the highlight of this 庆功宴 was a hilarious performance by xuehong, huizhi, zhunian and clarissa, and this performance was inspired by Sound Of The Music. 

invited by huishi to her 21st birthday party in 2008, and the theme was cartoon characters. huishi is now a happily married mother with a cute daughter. 

this was taken at DLS condominium, after the DR08 庆功宴. we went to leisure park to watch a late night movie 画皮 and also sing ktv after that. those were the crazy nights when we can party until so late and can survive with a few hours of sleep. 

if i am not wrong this was the EMCC 2009 庆功宴 and the theme was 'back to school'. 

EMCC 2010 庆功宴. the highlight was when we were watching the performance videos, and it came to fen's item when many red lanterns fly down the stage, and i shouted 'WELCOME TO GEYLANG' and everybody laughed. :D

and then we start to attend one another's wedding. this was hw's wedding in 2011, held at goodwood park hotel. i was the one who pulled hw into nuscd. hw, like me, was also a wushu exponent. his first performance for nuscd was during DR08, where he danced in michael's 出路 item, and forged a love-hate relationship with grace tiang. 

grace's birthday celebration in 2012. if i remember correctly it was a quarter century crisis birthday celebration organised by jingwen. why hw was not there? that's why they have a love-hate relationship. 

a very significant day for me and darling. 10.11.12, 10 November 2012. the day when i proposed to darling, and i activated grace, jingwen, hw, nzj and xuehong to help me. it was an epic proposal and i hope that everyone was happy and proud to be involved in it! of course darling said yes. :)

from birthdays and weddings to baby shower! this photo was taken at huizhi's daughter's one month baby shower in 2013. 

you may think that this was hw's birthday celebration, but it was actually jingwen's birthday celebration. grace booked a room at MBS to celebrate jingwen's birthday! 

xuehong's birthday celebration at fairmont. the room was booked by wilson and xiaoyun. xiaoyun and xuehong were very good friends during the NUSCD days, and they became colleagues at a dance company. xiaoyun looked after xuehong alot during that time, but unfortunately later on there were some misunderstandings that happened between both of them, and they are not on speaking terms now. as their friend, i do feel sad that things turned out this way, and i really hope that one day they will bury the hatchet. 

mirror moon 2013 庆功宴 held at nus utown. happy to be part of this production because alot of 老人 came back to dance, for example xuehong, jiepei, zhimin, jingwen, grace, xuefen, xinyi and peiyi. from this performance i also get to know silei better, and later on she became my choreographer for senses 2015 and i also invited her to my wedding. 

 my birthday celebration in 2014! 

finally it was grace turn to get married, at intercontinental hotel! this was in jan 2015. 

we gave nzj a surprise birthday celebration, after peiyi's wedding lunch. it was a baymax themed birthday celebration. 

to end off this post will be a photo with the nuscd dancers that was taken during our wedding. thank you so much for the great friendships on and off stage. 

looking forward to the next 老人 gathering! 

saturday post

it is already term 2 week 3. right now my motivation everyday is to quickly reach home and spend time with darling, watching tv together. i am becoming more like a family man and a... father to be. yes i am announcing it here. darling is pregnant! she is now at her 2nd trimester. the edd will be on 14 sept. :)

yesterday night we watched the final episode of 我是歌手. 

and this two were my favourite! 

singing the soundtrack from the latest korean craze 'Descendants Of The Sun', and inviting the original singer to perform the song together. win liao~

inviting the two canto legends, and he himself is also a canto legend. and 林子祥 can still rap like that at the age of 68?! omg i am so impressed. 

happy birthday darling~

brought darling to Equinox last saturday to give her a birthday lunch treat! 

the food spread was not as extensive as those at Sakura, but its quality made up for it. good food with good service and a splendid view while dining, why not? :)

mon evening we went to Famous Kitchen at 54 Sembawang Road for her birthday dinner. Famous Kitchen is apparently very famous (although it was my first time hearing of this place). once you go in to the restaurant you will see the walls covered with alot of photographs of celebrities who had dined at the restaurant. 

happy birthday darling~ hope you enjoy the birthday meals and the birthday present~

DOTS (Descendants Of The Sun)

the craze that is happening right now. and believe it or not, i actually have gone with the craze, together with darling. 

it all started 2 weeks ago, when we are lazing at home on a sunday morning, and darling happened to tune into the KBS channel. and it so happened that the channel was showing episode 1 of DOTS. and she found the drama quite interesting, and she asked me to watch together with her. so we watched together, and so happened that the channel is showing a DOTS marathon of episode 1 to 6! and ta da, we are hooked already. 

DOTS is broadcasted on KBS channel (Starhub Channel 815) on every wed and thur, 850 pm to 10 pm. 

and this is one of the soundtracks that i really like! 



this is the link to the official MV, which the user has disabled the embedding function: 
https://youtu.be/SdHQkkRc-hc

saturday post

just now darling and i hosted xuehong, nzj, laval + family, tuan (xuehong and nzj new house mate) and meizheng for dinner at our house. 

we prepared our signature dishes (actually it's the only dishes that we are proficient enough to cook): codfish soup, kimchi salmon, salmon with mustard and portobello mushrooms. we also got ready our air fryer, and we put it into good use, air frying chicken balls, seaweed chicken and spam fries! spam fries were really good, and super addictive. once you start, you cant stop. thank you xuehong for bringing the luncheon meat and cutting the meat into strips. 

it's great to see everyone and catch up with everyone! thanks for the housewarming gifts! :)

Easter Day post

very thankful for the public holiday today, because i can take a break at home. last week was the march holidays and i am really glad to recharge during that week, even though i went back to the workplace almost everyday to meet up with parents who missed the Meet Parent Session on 11 mar. on 11 mar that evening, the Meet Parent Session only ended at 1030 pm. omg. the professionalism of the teachers at the workplace never fails to amaze me. i am thankful to my colleague who replaced me because i was dancing for Space. Time. Mind. 

on wednesday i received a piece of shocking news. my ex colleague, Ms Marianne Wong, passed away on tuesday. 

ms marianne wong is at the right side of the picture, wearing a pink top, purple skirt, red necklace and a black pullover. 

ms wong teaches english and food & nutrition. she is a very happy and positive teacher, who enjoys singing. she always hums in the staffroom, and she was a member of the staff welfare committee, and when we celebrate colleagues' birthdays, she will gladly hold the mic and lead all of us to sing birthday songs. 

in 2014 she left tpss to join ngee ann sec as ngee ann sec needs food & nutrition teachers. the last time i saw her was last year, when she visited tpss. she happened to also be one of the teachers in-charge for dance, and hence she knew derek seong, and told me that derek sing high praises of me. 

yesterday i went to the wake. saw my ex colleagues there. as well as my ex students. students from ngee ann sec were there too. 

rest in peace ms wong. thank you for always being so cheerful. 

thursday post

invited some of my students to my new house this afternoon. 

all the students above are from show choir. coincidentally it was simin's birthday and i got a birthday cake for her to celebrate her birthday. 

later on wenping and shengrui (both from AVA) came, followed by chunying and yanan (both from modern chinese dance). 

wenping and shengrui are both very capable students. we worked very closely together because i was in charge of all the performing arts events, and every successful performance need a strong AVA team, and i am glad to have them. i wrote an article just for the AVA students for the school newsletter because they are the unsung heroes and their contributions always went unnoticed. 

as for chunying and yanan, i guess that they need no mentioning because they are always involved in my school performances, as well as the external performance by Xin Yi Dance Troupe that was successfully held in Dec 2015. 

had a very good chit chat session with everyone. the show choir students admitted to me that they were very scared of me because i always scold them during the B2B rehearsals in 2011. and in 2012 they were all so traumatised when they know that i am going to be their teacher in-charge. hahahahaha. but as time goes by they found out that i am a very nice person and they were glad to have me as their teacher in-charge. :p

thank you everyone for coming to my new house, and thank you for the house warming gifts. :) 

sunday post

i woke up this morning at 530 am, because i am going for Urbanthlon 2016 with my pe friends. a bit worried that i am not able to complete the run because i was not feeling well. 

thank goodness i still manage to complete it! all 4 of us have been participating in Urbanthlon since 2014. i haven't been running much before this and as a result i got cramps during the run and got an even worse cramp the moment i reach the tampines home. 

right after i showered i rushed to woodlands because darling and i are officially moving in today! while i was running the 14 km and clearing the 9 obstacles, darling and her family were busy moving the stuff and preparing for the official move in. thank you everyone for the great help~ 

the moment i reach our new house, we started to pray to 土地公 and also do the stuff that my dad instructed us to do. for example open the tap and let the water flow slowly, representing 财源滚滚. bringing valuables into the house to represent 财气入门. light up joss sticks and let the smoke from the joss sticks touch each room, each ceiling, each wall and each corner. then at every room must pray to the 宅神 to let me and darling 住的平安. 

and once everything was done, we have our first meal at the new house! 

don't you love our blue wall? it is so insta-worthy. :)

it feels really surreal that we have finally moved in to our new house. 3 months passed by so fast, when we first got our keys in late dec and we started renovation in early jan. 

i really want to thank my father in-law for making all this possible. he is our main contractor for the house. :) 

The Last Performance

space. time. mind was successfully concluded yesterday. emotions start to run through my head when the curtain call music was being played. i ended my stint with nuscd on a high by sharing the same stage with the BDA dancers, and i am thankful to have seen them right in front of my own eyes. 

thank you nuscd, and farewell. 

jingkai have posted some of the pics that he took and i like to share them here. :)

the prelude item by BDA was wow to the max. the thunderous applause from the audience testifies to it. 

First Light, the item that i danced in. initially i dreaded going for practises because i just finished the performance with 新艺, and my whole body was conditioned to become a mongolian dancer by BLS. then come back to NUSCD i must condition my body again to become a 身韵 dancer by DLS. but towards the last few practises i became more familiar with the steps and also became more confident. :)

for myself the whole performance went well but there was a small 遗憾. jiemin was my partner and when i did a lift with her and place her on the floor, i think i did not support her enough when she landed and she lost her stability and tumbled awkwardly on stage. after that item i saw her in tears outside the dressing room and i felt even more guilty. sorry jiemin for ruining your peformance. :(

dun you think the snow look so pretty? i am partly responsible for it once again as the snowman that pulled the string that allowed the confetti to fall off from the boxes that are attached to the flybar. thank you to the vice-president yoke kay (who was also my dancer partner in 2015) who asked me to be the snowman. thank you bin gege for nominating me to yoke kay to be the snowman. hahahaha. 

this item was right after the snow item, and we have only 40 seconds to clear away all the confetti. seriously dunno what the management was thinking. luckily we survived the ordeal and we managed to do the impossible of clearing most of the confetti in 40 seconds. this is NUSCD unity. anyway i love this item, titled Wonder. i love the costumes and love the music. and love the dance steps. it is a very DLS dance. 

the highlight of Space. Time. Mind was The Rites of Spring 春之祭. it was a collaboration between the nuscd dancers and BDA dancers. a very abstract item and when i watched the rehearsal a few times, i still cannot understand what the item is portraying. 

to end this post, i like to thank my ADSS colleagues and students for coming down to support me. i think i finally win zhunian with the highest number of tickets (43!!!). the past few years zhunian was always the winner.  

and from now on, i shall support NUSCD by being a member of the audience.