Can you spot the zebra? Taken while on the tram, so not conducive to take anything that need focus
Had a sense of deja-vu while on the tram... seemed like I've done this before...hmmm... tram view
While on the tram, an ang-moh couple with their 2 adorable boys climbed on-board. The kids were eating Ben & Jerry's cookies.. and boy, the cookie was ultra-big compared to these teeny tots. Then the younger one was looking at the map with daddy, so the older boy wanted to look as well. So elder brother started to pull the map and said, "Let me have a turn." The younger one turned to his elder brother and said, "Just a minute!" Haha, it sounded so adult-like.. probably got it from their parents. The mum was quite amused. Cute!
nice shot, right?
They had this Butterfly Walk, so I took the route.. and guess what.... NO BUTTERFLIES! Haha, probably flew to don't know where I suppose...
So, when this lone butterfly (or rather.. moth?) landed on a leaf.. can't resist photographing it
cobwebs
maned wolf (from Brazil), who was quite restless that day... it kept on circling its compound... probably felt threatened by the human visitors..
comparing against the orang utan hand... wah.. mine also not small leh
One grouse.. why is Daiso so damn far away from civilization?!? Haha, IMM for me is quite far la.. since not accessible directly via MRT. Hmm.. the one in Plaza Singapura is too small... so that's left with one in Vivo. Maybe I shall try that next time.
Anyway, yesterday went to the one in IMM. Bought the plastic rack and tray for placing the dishes after washing ('coz my place doesn't have that!), also added in one to hold the spoons and chopsticks and what not. Then bought a table cloth (more like PVC version). Each for $2 only. Wahahhaha!
Just the other day I was at Great World City. And there's this lifestyle shop that was having a promotional sale. Stylo-milo and very expensive! Designer-ware. The placemats that they had were quite cool.. but all costs something like above $10 per piece.
One day if I ever strike lottery, maybe can buy a house to decorate... heh heh.. probably only 1 room can have designer-ware and the rest of the spaces.... Daiso furnished. Hah!
I have always wondered how does a lemon merringue pie taste like ever since I saw one Donald Duck comic and in it, they had lemon merringue pie. Heh, my childhood stuffs. So Gina graciously baked some (after like 1000 times of pestering her).
lemon merringue pie
lemon merringue closer view
The taste is not quite like what I imagined it to be though...
Gina had also prepared some dough 'coz she wants to bake some buns. Obviously, I also want to join in the fun and made funny shaped buns!
bun in the oven
my 'currypuff' shaped bun is bursting out!
insides of the bun
baker cum photographer cum Gina
final product
Heh, Gina.. maybe I should upload the video too! ;P
Apparently these birds are reared by the Bangladeshi workers behind my house back home in Kajang. The chicks and the duckling are kinda cute when they come round the house. But everytime I ran to get my camera, they'll run off so quickly! But of course, probably I was slow la...
It has been proven, once again! I definitely have NO sense of direction!
My colleague wanted to send me home after Ade's baby shower since my house is nearby. By right la.. it is supposed to be nearby. Because I am coming back from an unfamiliar place (never took cab from Ade's place back to my new home mah...), so I can't possibly tell the bus route. But we trust SG's road signage and manage to get to Yew Tee, but thereafter, we went circling looking for my flat.
To cut story short, finally came to the familiar road so I said, "Ah, can stop me at the bus stop." Because indeed my house is behind a bus stop. So I got off, said my byebyes. And then I looked at the block. Hey, it doesn't look familiar. Faintz... I actually asked to be dropped off at the WRONG bus stop. My house is at the NEXT bus stop. Ha... ha...
Yup, it has become a yearly exodus. Oh, how I wish it wasn't so... Haha, lamenting the fact that moving house every year depletes your energy and your money!
Anar... because owner say wanna raise $50 per month, we decided to MOVE! But then, move house so easy meh... must call movers (have to since now got washing machine, 1 single bed and 1 PC table + about 20 medium sized boxes). So movers cost $320, take taxi to new place is $20. Pay agent's fee is $820 (got GST siah). So all in all... bo hua also lo.
New place considered not bad already, spacious and at least now have wardrobes and a storeroom! Something that was sorely lacking previously. But then, I got an icky toilet. Hardcore yellow stain.. Don't ask. I scrubbed as much as I can but can't really bring myself (nor my bum) to touch its bare surface. So I got a new toilet seat (those PVC kind), that costs $8. Now I can really 'rest' in peace...
And so I thought.. toilet water tank.. leaking water siah... Problem liao liao.
An interesting DVD. Dr John Gottman explains it in a very understandable manner and quite humourous as well. The magic in having a masterful relationship as compared to disasterous ones, apparently can be viewed as 5:1 ratio. 5 positives to 1 negative. For every negative that happened in a relationship, it will need 5 positives to mend it. Sounds like hardwork, doesn't it? ;)
In the DVD, he said he is not a relationship guru but merely a researcher who has done extensive research by observing 3000 couples over a period of 30 years. He likened that in a relationship, both parties are accumulating points (via positives stuffs) that will be depleted during rough times (negative stuffs). So positives are buffers for negatives.
Dr Gottman has outlined 7 principles (strategies) that will reinforce the positive aspects of a relationship and help marriages endure during the rough moments:
1. Love Maps - love map is defined as the place in your brain where you store information pertaining to your partner. This is crucial in really knowing your partner, their dreams, hopes, interests, and maintaining his interest throughout the relationship. Who wouldn't like if their partner showed genuine interest in their daily stuffs?
2. Nurture Fondness and Admiration - positive view about your spouse, respecting and appreciating their differences If we admire our partner, just praise him/her appropriately. Why not?
3. Turn towards Each Other Instead of Away - be aware of bids in relationship where your partner is trying to gain your attention/affection - acknowledge and respond positively towards your partner His example, is something like if your partner calls out to you while you're doing something else... the least we can do, is to respond in some manner. Some do it enthusiastically while others less enthu. But the worse that one can do, is to turn away. Your partner will unlikely bid for your affection again after that.
4. Let Your Partner Influence You - woman are already quite acceptable towards influence from their partner - if the man can allow himself to accept his partner's influence then the relationship can progress into deeper levels due to the close connection felt by both How come the man so special? I don't know, that's what his research showed.. *LOL*
5. Solve Your Solvable Problems. It is important to compromise on issues that can be resolved which Gottman believes can be accomplished by these five steps: a. Soften your startup b. Learn to make and receive repair attempts c. Soothe yourself and each other d. Compromise e. Be tolerant of each other’s faults. Masters can live with small irritable faults of their partner!
6. Overcome Gridlock - The big issues that cannot be resolved because both partners’ views are so fundamentally different involves understanding of the other person and deep communication. The goal is to at least get to a position that allows the other person to empathize with the partners view even if a compromise cannot be reached.
7. Create Shared Meaning - Create a shared value system that continually connects the partners through rituals/traditions, shared roles and symbols. Share your life dreams, together...
REMEMBER: Never say anything like "What's the matter with you?" to your partner!
Also, if our heart rate goes above 100bps, then we're less likely be able to reason well and say anything positively.. so, please take a break until our heart rate is normal again before resuming the prior 'discussion' (or in this case disagreement). We might find humor once again :)
The days of gluttony are over. Back to reality after 10 days of pure unadulterated laziness. I wonder if I can ever get back in gear.
Our reunion dinner starting from this year onwards will be a quieter affair. It used to be more boisterous with lots of other relatives gathered because our grandma stayed with us and naturally all her kids will have to gather together for Chinese New Year.
Below are some pics of what we had. Note: All the cooking are done by my sis. steamboat (using rice cooker for the soup), fried beehoon, fried lala and prawns. Pork bought by dad.
sweet and sour prawns (with garnishes somemore, so pro right?)
lots of tiny lalas!
of course must have some veges! sweet corn for soup base
And then, on the first day of New Year, we had vegetarian for breakfast.
cantonese style vegetarian (with lots of gluten!)
For lunch, we had oyster rice and the leftover pork, and my sis made croquette.
That Sunday after class, went to TCC with a friend. Then of course need to order drinks mah.. else go in there for wat? Centerpoint TCC's seats are all quite weird, so chose the normalest looking ones.
Wanted to call for the service staff, and along came a boy with his hands full holding a tray with empty glasses on one hand and another carrying a cloth. He was like in a dilemma of whether to take our order or to put down the stuffs that he's carrying first. So he sort of like paiseh and asked if he could put down his tray first, so I said, "Go ahead..." and of course I smiled at him. (Hey.. I'm forever friendly one.. don't you know??)
So back he came, and everything went on quite normal with us ordered our drinks. Then he sort of like came back and said something. Which I totally didn't catch. So I asked, "Sorry.. what was that again?" He said, "Is this your first time here?" I said yes while my friend said no. Quite funny la, but then he said, "'Coz you looked familiar." Ahem.. he said while looking at me and his behaviour looked as though he was quite nervous when he said that. Haha!
So conspiracy theories:
1. He was totally mesmerised by me.. and hence, can't seem to contain his nervousness while talking to me 2. He was smitten by my friend and hence, can't seem to contain his nervousness and so looked at the distractor (me!) and avoided any eye contact with the object of desire
Hahahaha, so there you go.. 2 school of thoughts. Aiya.. or he's just a nervousy boy? Don't know. Anyway, called for bill and he happened to be the one that passed by (again!) so he took the money and passed it to counter. Then he came by our table, and looked at me and said nervously but smilingly, "Your change will be here soon." MUahahah, so cute~
As this module is all about team skills and we're to present our discussions to the class for 10 minutes for each of the 10 discussions. So yesterday one team went up to present and their chosen topic was to do "Youth Sexual Wellness - Abstinence". And Karen was talking about how the youth nowadays engages in premarital sex, etc and so abstinence is one of the preventive method. Another angle was how to educate the young about safe sex, so she said, "Safe sex could be through the use of condominium..." Everyone in the class exploded in laughter. Yeah, of course we knew she meant condom.. but still the slip of tongue combined with her innocent and blur look made it all the more even funnier!
Think that was the highlight of the class yesterday.
Recent encounters made me wonder, how exactly do people value their words? When we agree on something, how easily swayed are we that this agreement can make a U-turn?
A friend of my brother introduced an acquaintance of hers (her former course-mate) that happened to be wanting to rent out their HDB flat. So we went to view it, found it ok, and thus, indicated our interest to rent. After a few days (which we presumed they must've been considering other offers), they came back to us and indicated that they were happy to rent out the flat to us. Yup, they said they were happy. So we said ok, and asked when do we sign the contract and whether there were any other fees involved. So they came back and said that we would need to pay agent's fee of about $400. Hello?!? In this equation, there was no agent.. why should we be paying agent's fees? Hence, we highlighted this to them and said, most of the contractual preparation can be done without an agent and we (tenants) can do the legwork for them.
So we met up again at their home, with them being friendly host and stuffs and we showed them samples of how the agreement looked like, the house inventory list that they need to prepare etc. So they said they will call us again once the contract is ready.
Lo and behold... 2 days later, they sms'ed to say, "Decided not to rent to you and your brother." Just like that. &%^%$*()((*$#@# <-- for child's safety, cannot print these words...
If don't rent then tell us earlier la... why bother to go through all these trouble of getting our NRIC as well.. just for pretence?!
Conspiracy theory 1: They found other tenants that can pay maybe $1.8K or $2K for their flat
Conspiracy theory 2: Their own intended accommodation have problem and hence they also cannot move out
Conspiracy theory 3: They found it too troublesome to prepare the documents themselves and hence will need an agent to help them but don't want to bear the full cost of the agent's fee and thus will need tenants that are willing to be conned to pay half for them
Conspiracy theory 4: They suddenly realised they don't like our faces after meeting us for the second time
In my own personal opinion, its likely theory 1 as they did not even supply the reason for the sudden U-turn in decision. If it's theory 2, then they would say so, and i wouldn't feel so pissed off. Theory 3, also likely and hence can be seen in the same light as theory 1. Theory 4, quite unlikely as I'm so likeable... (pukes!) hahaha
Sigh... what value is the human word? Probably zero.
ps: sent an sms to them to ask why the sudden change in decision... and the answer was "We decided to work through an agent." How lame... how sad. If that's the case, why bother asking your friends to recommend someone to you? Tsk tsk...
Been struggling with this stupid PC of mine for the past 2 days! Given me blue screens a couple of times, browser crashed like nobody's business and finally it said, "C:\windows\system32\config file corrupted"
CORRUPTED! Faints...
So decided to recover it a bit but made it worse, so cannot boot up... Then decided to reformat one of the partition and install the OS again... Installed about finish, then it gave blue screen again... saying now that one file is missing or corrupted... walao...
Never mind, it suggested to disable whatever cache that the BIOS is having.. fine. Did that and it took 1.5 hours to do what it can normally do in 20 minutes... double faints...
Wow, whoever put the notion into their heads? 2 German kids (aged 6 & 7 !) wanted to elope to Africa (?).
And they really went as far as gotten out of the house (while their parents were asleep...), took a tram ride and reached the central station to wait for a train to the airport... (of course, where got money to buy air tickets.. or rather, the kids didn't think they need to buy tickets?)
Really went and bought it liao. After deliberating over it for like... 2 months and finally within this 3 days.
Happened to surf Harvey Norman's website like a couple of weeks ago and saw their promotion for the digital cameras. The promotion is that they are giving away the same Sitex promo freebies. So far, I've asked in Funan and the shops quoted about $358 at the cheapest rate. Others are quoting about $379. Retail price is stated as $399.
So I was at Novena Square on New Year's day and saw Harvey Norman's roadshow. Stood there contemplating for about 20 minutes... (as usual). Asked for the price and was pleasantly happy to hear that HN is quoting $359 plus all the Sitex freebies; which included camera case, screen protector, AA rechargeable batteries + charger, 2GB + 8GB sd card and a mini tripod.
Decided to buy anyway and went back there today... but not before standing there again for about 20 minutes more.. (as usual!). Was considering between 3 powershots model A2000 IS ($359), SX110 IS ($459) and SX10 IS ($719). SX10 IS was very tempting because of Digic 4, 20x optical zoom and also because its made in Japan. The rest are all Made in China products. Of course SX10 IS looks more professional too with its bulky frame and many settings that you can play with.
However, due to budget constraint, finally, decided to get an intermediate upgrade from my modest 3.2 megapixel to 10 megapixel, and from 3x to 6x optical zoom, and with a price that is cheaper than my powershot A70 (bought at $425 in 2004 because the case itself was not free and cost me $20! &*@#!)
Actually come to think about it, the price for this A2000 IS is not exactly cheap either... Anyway, bought liao at $399 (because of the extended warranty).
box
the real thing (front view)
back view (check out the 3inch LCD panel!)
One thing to note is that this model, though still powershot, is slimmer than the previous A70 model and uses 2 AA batteries only (hopefully the battery lifespan is not twice as short!) So that's an improvement already. However, it is rather flimsy especially the cover for the data cable. Have to gently peel at it to open the latch otherwise, I imagine it'll be easily detached (like the old A70!) and lost somewhere.
Oh, no viewfinder in this version. Heh, even the A70 version that has the viewfinder I also didn't find it useful because the resulting picture position is not the true reflection of what you see using the viewfinder.
the pile of goodies that came together
The 2GB was upped to 4GB (to entice me to make the decision faster I suppose..), so now I have 4GB + 8GB of memory card. Not bad right? If I were to add the retail cost of those freebies, probably it'll total up to $100+.
Oh, they also gave me one box of chocolate and 1 umbrella. Heh, small things but probably cost around another $10 in total? Muahahhaha!
free chocolates
trying out macro using A2000
another macro shot
6x zoom
without zoom
Hope this camera will serve me well, and here's to many more pictures to come!
ps: anyone interested to buy any electrical stuffs from HN Square2, can come and get the contact person's number from me (so that he can give you a better bargain)
Tracks that I like: 1. I'll Move On 2. One Note Samba 3. Fly Me to the Moon
Saw her "Best Collection" album at Gramaphone store. Selling for around $45. Expensive siah! It's as good as buying 2 albums (each album cost about $19.90) and still have some spare change...
