the school has a bbq pit. how cool is that? and if it rains, fret not, the OM also has mobile bbq pits, for us to bbq under shelter. i am amazed beyond words.
this afternoon we have our first bbq session, to reward the students for their wonderful efforts in their VIA presentation, and also for them to catch a breather, after a stressful term 1 (of course they still have 3 more stressful terms to survive).
my students are like paparazzi. hahaha.
not bad leh, the boys want to bbq. at my show choir chalets that i organised, is only me and deniece bbq-ing, and the kids eat happily.
4E1 bbq, SUCCESS! :)
my first speech day with the workplace. this year they are celebrating their 15th anniversary.
beside me is ziyuan, the top student of last year's sec 3 cohort. she also got best in chem, best in physics, best in higher chinese, best in e maths and best in a maths. beside her is ee qing, the second in standard, also got best in combined humanities. the two of them will most probably be the top students for this year's o level, if nothing goes wrong.
my pe student. very cheeky, mischievous, but he is a genuine person with a good heart. his father opens two economic rice stalls in woodlands. hopefully one day can patronise the stall. :)
and last but not least, my dancers! all the best for this year's SYF!
this morning i got a day off from work because i am being called up by SAF to go to safra mount faber for the MR ceremony to collect my MR watch and 10 years NS medal.
the watch and medal was supposedly to be collected last year, on the final day of our 10th ICT, but due to some cock up by the army logistics branch, the watches were not ready. so SAF suggested to mail the watch and medal to our house, but my CO refuse that suggestion, because he believe that a ceremony is necessary, to thank the servicemen for the 10 years of contribution to the defence of singapore.
my CO, although he is also a NSman, but his love and loyalty to the country is second to none, and he always stress upon us the importance of national service, and the standards he demand from us are really very high. that's why he commands the respect from everyone, and we really work our buttocks off during in-camp training, so that he wun screw us if we screw up.
it is really my honour to work under this CO, and i am really so proud and happy to go up on stage to receive the medal and watch from him personally.
can see my rank and name being engraved on the medal? :)
behold, my name engraved wrongly. name engraved correctly on the medal, but wrongly on the watch. another cock up from SAF. #哭笑不得
no more NS. yessssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
in the morning i brought my dance club to kallang theatre for their syf rehearsal.
i love kallang theatre, because i performed there twice during my secondary school days, for the school anniversary celebrations.
kallang theatre undergo a revamp and it looks more modern now, especially with the two LCD screens at both sides of the stage.
afternoon was photo taking with my form class. this is my first time taking a graduating class as a form class, and it is the best express class, the creme of the crop.
i really have so much love for this class.
they got back their chemistry common test results, and half of the class fail. :'(
my chemistry rep was also very disappointed, and he has alot of heart for the class, and he couldn't sleep the whole night, thinking about how to make the class improve in chemistry. and he sent me a super long message to give me suggestions on how i can help the class improve, and the class have faith in me as their chemistry teacher, and he really wants everyone to improve together.
so much love for him as well. <3 font="">
on friday night FIL came to my house and we prepared the ingredients together for the yakitori. apple, pear, oranges, yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and... JACKFRUIT. yes jackfruit. to be honest i have my reservations.
taaa daaaaaa!!! that is 2 plates of pork belly shabu shabu. FIL worries that it will not be enough for all of us to eat.
the army stew!
my sister in-law bought pork ribs and prawns. MIL cooked a dish of asparagus with scallops and XO sauce.
wonderful and delicious lunch. my life is complete.
and guess what? the jackfruit yakitori taste surprisingly nice. hahahahahahaha. next time FIL wants to try using grapes and bananas. hahahahaha.
today i prepared these for dinner, because the in-laws are coming to our house to eat dinner. darling's mum is a very good cook, and after a tough day of sch, i seek solace and comfort in her food. i really love the egg tofu, chicken rice, tau kwa with pork, cabbage, dumplings, bitter gourd fish head and cod fish. and the soups that she make are OMG. so good and so nourishing. so when they come to our house, of course i must prepare something special for them. :)
prepared these because darling and i tasted very good yakitori at taichung's fengjia night market. they wrap bacon over interesting ingredients such as orange and mochi. the mochi one really a bit too high level so i decided not to do that. after discussing with darling, the ingredients that we use are orange (from cny hahahahaha), cherry tomatoes, oyster mushroom and yellow pepper.
also prepared kimchi salmon. but it seems that the yakitori is more popular than the kimchi salmon. hahahahaha.
the biggest recognition is... my FIL requests for the yakitori and the army stew he ate last week to be prepared on his birthday celebration, which is on next sat. while eating we were actually discussing where should we go and eat. so MIL suggest stay at home, and she will cook some nice dishes. she then suggested cooking curry, and my FIL said no need the curry, he wants the yakitori and army stew. and he also want to prepare the yakitori together with me next saturday. hahahahahaha.
i can sleep very well tonight. :)
on this very special day, i did not go to sch. instead i went for an Outdoor Education workshop held at the Academy of Singapore Teachers.
to be very honest, it feels good to take a break from school and go for a course. next wed and thur i will be going for my first aid refresher course. hee hee hee.
after the Outdoor Education workshop i travelled to chai chee to collect the v day present that i got for darling. it is actually customised balloons inside a big box. the person who is doing this business is a lady that i got to know in tzu chi, when i was involved in their production. she is so kind to give me a 10% discount. :)
you can follow @balloonelle.official on instagram to see what products and services they provide! you can also try your luck by saying my name and see if she will also give you a discount. hahahaha.
and guess what? the biggest beneficiaries of this big balloon are actually enxuan and yuanze. they played with the balloon so happily for a good 15 minutes. life's simplest joy is to witness your children playing happily. :)
my 元宵 was spent with my students. invited them to come to my house for a cny gathering. originally there were 12 students who are coming. 1 got the date wrong. 1 have to go for a video shoot. 2 cannot make it last min. 1 arrive at 9 pm.
and i prepared a big pot of army stew, pork shabu shabu, kimchi salmon, and ordered 3 large pezzo pizzas.
thank goodness my in-laws pop by and help to eat the army stew and pork. :)
it was great to see all of them again after so long. especially lee shermin (the girl in pale blue) whom i had not seen since my wedding in dec 2015.
happy 元宵 to everybody!!
this year's cny was not very festive for me because yuan ze fell sick. he had cough, flu and fever. on chu yi when everyone go bai nian, we stay at home, and i also have to go to guardian to buy vicks ointment for yuan ze. :(
darling knows that at 4 months old, there's no cough or flu medicine to be prescribed, so we decided to see it through, and hope he will become better. unfortunately it did not get better, and we brought him to see the paediatrician on wednesday. the paediatrician believes that he caught a viral infection when we went out on cny eve. HAIYAAAA...
right now he is still coughing a bit, with phlegm in his throat. there's still mucus in his nose. for the past few days, when we tried to suck the mucus out, he resisted like hell, machiam fighting a war with us. but since yesterday, when we put the SMD (suck mucus device HAHAHAHAHAHA) in his nostrils, he allowed us to do it, and he did not move at all, and from his facial expressions, we can tell that he totally enjoyed it. hahahaha.
on a side note, the photos of my maiden performance are out!
after a year of hiatus, i get to don my wushu costume again, and perform on stage with the dance club students.
this is my first time dancing with them on stage, and i am quite sure that this is the first time that a teacher dances with the students on stage in the entire history of the workplace.
hope that my dancers will treasure this opportunity of performing together with their teacher in-charge, and feel inspired by my passion in performing on stage, and performing with energy, effort and expressions!
a group pic before we perform! this performance is actually using this year's syf steps with music that has some chinese elements. so my instructor have some difficulties finding those kind of music and she asked me for some recommendation. i sent her two music, the opening item music by BDA for space.time.mind and the 水袖 music in 2009. and the choreographer (the guy in brown singlet) chose the 水袖 music. last year when he came to the workplace to teach dance, i find him very familiar. so i stalk him on facebook and realised that he also went to sibu in 2015 for the Sibu International Dance Festival. life is full of coincidences! and sg is so small.
taken by my dance student who graduated last year. :)
taken by my colleague!
taken by my partner FT mr ray chua~
group photo with the form class!
the coolest expression from 3 of us.
the photographer told the two ladies to do my signature pose.
adss pe dept! so much love for all of them!
again all of them do my signature pose. looks like the whole school already know that this is my signature pose. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
left the workplace at 11 am and went home to do some spring cleaning.
this year's reunion dinner was at two places. round 1 was at pappa mia, festival hotel RWS, with darling's family, arranged by my sister in-law who is a restaurant supervisor of pappa mia. pappa mia sells delicious local cuisine at reasonable prices. their chicken rice is yumz because they hired the head chef of chatterbox (the super atas chicken rice). i also love their satay and satay burger! the only downside of eating there is that i spent 18 dollars on parking at RWS. -.-'''
round 2 was at tanah merah, with my family. always look forward to eat steamboat over there, especially the 麻辣 one. my 8th uncle's wife is from 四川 and she prepares the authentic 四川麻辣火锅! damn shiok! darling up her level this year by trying it. hahahaha.
brought students to watch chingay. it is a cohort bonding LJ (learning journey) for the sec 4 students.
in my 34 years of life as a singaporean, this is actually my first time being to chingay.
we have to assemble in school at 4 pm, and the buses will pick us up at 5 pm. it was raining heavily at 2 pm and it subsided at 3 pm plus. but as we are otw to the chingay venue, it started to rain heavily again...
presenting to you, the CHINGAY RAIN CURSE.
i am surprised that the heavy rain didn't drench our spirits. everyone was still very energetic. the performance started and everyone was treated to the magnificient sights of dance, floats, and pyrotechnics.
before going to chingay, i knew that there are 3 ADSS students dancing at chingay. and after i posted on instagram that i was at chingay, a TPSS student replied to my post that she and 2 other tampinesians were also dancing. and much later on, tan zhunian also replied to my post that she's dancing!
introducing my form class for this year, 4E1. this is my first time being an FT of a graduating class. and introducing my FT partner, mr ray chua, who is a senior teacher in physics. looking forward to forge more memories with this wonderful class!
