Army Open House 2017

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!! 

equarius hotel

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. 

weekend post

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

the worst 45 minutes of my life

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.  

syf

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. :)

good friday post

thank god for good friday. a great day for me to rest, recuperate and recharge. 

first we brought yuanze to the barber to get his hair cut. when reaching the barber, i can hear crying. in my mind i was thinking... oh dear siao liao... when i walked in, i saw a 2 year old kid crying at his maximum volume. 

was so worried that yuanze will be affected and wun want to get his hair cut. but no leh. he look at the mirror and smiled. and the barber just shaved off his hair immediately. and yuanze just stare at the mirror, totally oblivious to all the crying in the background. 

honestly i was thinking to myself, why the mother still insist her son to get his hair cut, when he is crying like that. if it was me i would have brought him home and do it on another day. and darling felt the same too. :p

and so within 5 minutes, without much fuss from yuanze, the barber finished shaving yuanze's hair. really feel so proud of yuanze. yuanze we love you!! 

our 真命小和尚. hahahahaha. 

in the evening i made a trip to bugis to support mr adam's malay dance/bollywood dance class, known as tari nachie. 

thank you mr adam for the class! really missed your lesson with all your jokes. i always love it when mr adam comes to my previous workplace to teach. his sarcasm is top notch man. top notch to the extent that the kids dunno that the sarcasm is being directed at them. hahahahahaha. 

chinese dance SYF

made a trip down to kallang theatre to support the chinese dance from my previous workplace. i always have a soft spot for the chinese dance girls, because i myself is a chinese dance practitioner. i first saw them in 2007/2008, when i was a contract teacher. and oh dear, they look disastrous. and then in 2009, they got BLS to be their instructor, and omg, their syf in 2009 they got GOLD WITH HONOURS. 

for 2011's syf, they got gold. then from 2013 onwards, syf revamped their award structure. no more gold with honours, gold, silver, and bronze. it became certificate of distinction (the highest accolade), certificate of accomplishment and certificate of commendation. 

in 2011, batman wanted a hip hop dance group, and so came the birth of dance dynamics. since 2011, dance dynamics became stronger and stronger, with more and more members joining. sadly for chinese dance, the members joining became lesser and lesser. and that's probably the main reason why i have a soft spot for them. so in 2013, the chinese dance got certificate of accomplishment and dance dynamics got certificate of distinction. the chinese dance girls, very naturally, were devastated and they cried terribly. in 2015, they worked very hard, and they got back the distinction. 

today, i go to kallang theatre, not expecting anything. i was no longer a teacher over there, and i have not seen them dance for one year plus. 

but still, i was very happy to see all of them again. happy to see BLS and ZLS. and when i saw them dance on stage, i was overwhelmed with alot of emotions. they danced well. it was a 朝鲜 item, and this item requires very good 后腰 and very good coordination with the drums. i think they stand a good chance to get distinction. i really hope they can get it! 

i also love their costumes! 

met up with the alumni, alva and meiling, who graduated 2 years ago, for lunch at leisure park. alva was one of the wedding dancers at my wedding. :) 

i really like the syf photobooth backdrops at the various syf venues. kudos to my friend at arts education branch for doing all these! 

took pic again with another two alumni, tammy and germaine. they graduated last year. 

i also want to wish kranji sec chinese dance all the best for their syf results! their choreographer is xuehong. watched their item during the syf exchange, and i must say, the item is very xuehong. colourful costumes, many formations, that's xuehong style for you! 

Admirals' Run

our annual running event, which is a 2.4 km test for all the students. 

i was awaken by thunder at 3 am and oh shit, it started to rain heavily. left home at 515 am and it was still drizzling. reach japanese garden at 6 am, and it was still drizzling. 

thank goodness at 7 plus the sky cleared, no more drizzle, and the sun came out. and i got sunburnt. hahahahaha. 

i got 3rd for the staff men's category. beside me are my fellow dance teachers in-charge. the lady in black, same age as me, got 5th in the staff women's category. the lady in pink got 4th. 

and i am very happy for my dancers too, as a few of them got top 10 for their levels. they have been running 2.4 km every week to train their stamina for the upcoming syf. i am super proud of my president, who got a better position than 2 girls from the badminton school team, and this 2 girls are from my form class. i think both of them will hate me for that hahahahahahaha. therefore, thank goodness that they wun be able to see this at all. :p

after the whole event, the pe dept went to sakura for lunch. thank you boss and 2ic for the treat! 

happy birthday darling

a day before darling's birthday, her sec sch best friends came to surprise her. darling is really blessed to have these best friends. i already lost contact with most of my sec sch friends. the few that i kept in contact is only through facebook. 

xuanxuan had a really good time entertaining them with her 'let it go' performance as well as her own antics. 

dun you think this looks like a 全家福? hahahahaha. 

and now for the actual day. i ordered a bouquet of 30 tulips - 10 yellow, 10 red and 10 white, from my aunt who is a florist. my aunt always give me the best price, and today, she provided value-added service. she personally delivered the bouquet to darling. omg. i am touched and amazed beyond words. 

birthday cake from cat and fiddle, which i ordered. :)

dun you agree that the tulips look beautiful? :)

saturday post

during monday's assembly programme, the performing arts CCAs presented their syf items to the whole school. the rationale is for the whole school to show encouragement to the performing arts CCAs who are preparing very hard for SYF. 

when i first heard about this showcase, i have my reservations. firstly, it will affect their preparations. to have a showcase, i need to coordinate a rehearsal. and the rehearsal is on a CCA day when CCA hours are very precious. 

but it is ok, i am still a newbie at the workplace so i shall just adhere to the practises here. therefore besides the assembly programme being a showcase, i also use it to share with the whole school my performing arts journey, and to give tips to the syf performers on how to put up their best performance on stage, and finally to broadcast to the whole school when are their presentation dates and get the whole school to give the syf performers a rousing applause as an encouragement for their syf preparations (that is the primary rationale why this showcase is happening). 

my trademark tagline. effort, energy, expressions! 

today it was a very happening morning. first of all there is ADSS Cup, a football tournament organised for the students. and the criteria for the students to participate is that they must not have any demerit points and they must pass their common test. i think this is a good initiative, because it motivates everyone to behave well in order for them to participate in this. i helped to source for the referees as well as plan out the fixtures. 

and so happened on this same day, is SYF exchange at another school in the north. the dance instructor at that school is peter teo, and he jio-ed me. of course i agreed to it, because my dance girls need the exposure, to see how are the dance clubs from the other schools. there were 10 schools in total, and i am very happy to catch up with people like peter, chze siang, kenneth, elizabeth and huifen. dance is really an amazing platform to make friends. it was a good learning experience for my dancers and it was an eye opening experience for me to see the works from my dance choreographer friends. too bad xuehong is performing at GBTB today and i can't catch up with him. 

ADSS Cup group shot! thank god for lovely weather this morning. it is raining now in the afternoon. :p

peter teo giving his briefing. 2 years later please have it at my workplace. i can host. the hall at my workplace is air conditioned. hee hee hee. 

i think my dancers did very well today. it is their best performance so far. of course they can do even better. thank you to all the instructors for their feedback. :) 

i really enjoy syf. it excites me. although i can't say the same for my dancers, as well as my friends who are the choreographers. hahahahaha. 

4E1 BBQ

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! :)

Speech Day 2017

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! 

MR ceremony

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!