My first Aquaaerobics class!

Today is Ben & Jerry's free cone day! The good thing is that I'm on half day today. Yeah!!! But this is my last half day to be cleared for the remaining leave from last year. Really gotta be careful on how I spend my leave in the remaining months since I plan to visit Ah Ma at San Francisco in December. Yes!!! Really can't wait till then! :)

Yeah, back to my half day of leave today. Sadly, I didn't managed to get any free cone today. I made a trip down to Suntec City after taking a nice afternoon nap. Ermm...well, I wasn't there specially for the free cone lah, but was there for a swim & to try out the aqua-aerobics class at my gym. I was expecting to see long queues outside Carrfour (which happened last year) with people queueing for their free cones yet I saw no one giving out free cones! Not even at the B & J shop. Later did I realise that the free giveaway was only available at selected outlets. Disappointing! Nevertheless, I still went off for my swim, happily. :)

Oh yeah! Did some leisure swim at the pool, relax abit and waited for the aqua-aerobics class to commence. Haha!!! Finally!!! I always wanted to try it but didn't get the chance to. I was so excited!!

The class started off with some basic warm-up exercises in the water. It still appeared easy then. As the class progressed, oh manz, it's pretty tedious. Especially when you see the instructress going through the motions so fast and effortless at the surface (while we were in the water), it seemed like there's no way to catch up with her. Later part of the class, she used the "noodle", which is a long rod-shaped float that is used as a resistance in water. I kept floating upwards when I use it while others managed to stay in water. OMG! So malu!!! I wonder if it's my technique or really like the instructress said, that I'm ligher than the "noodle" in water. Haha....

Anyway, it was a fun session. So hungry & tired after the class.

Start of of running regime!

As usual, on my way to work this morning, I took out my earpiece so that I can connect it to my hp to listen to radio (yeah, Class 95! :)). But somehow, the wires of the earpiece got tangled up and I ended up spending my entire train journey to work attempting to untangle it. In the end, it just worsened, and the knot got even harder to untie. I think I did it with so my frustration and strength that part of the rubber even came off, exposing the wire inside (the greenish part in the pic). Sigh...eventually, I gave up undoing the mess.

I think there's no way to salvage the earpiece unless I cut off part of it to undo the knot. Haiz... Anyone with a spare earpiece?? I don't think I can survive my gruelling 45mins of train journey in the morning without Class 95. LLT, come back soon! I know you can save me!! Haha....

Anyway, without it, I still got my ipod. But i just prefer radio in the morning rather than just songs after songs with mp3.

Finally had a good jog in the evening and I completed 4km! hee hee... Well, it's time to start on my jogging regime since I've just signed up for 2 marathons - Shape run in July and SBR in August. Will be running 10km for each event. Siao liao!! Gotta run on a more regular basis now! I shall run in my dreams now! Wahahaha....

MayDay ROCKS!!!!

To be true, I'm a big big fan of Mayday. I love most of their songs as their music is fantastic & the lyrics of their songs are always quite meaningful.

I almost didn't want to attend their concert this year as I've attended their previous concert at Expo last year which was supposed to be pretty much similar to this year's. Last year's theme was "JUMP!" (away from Earth) while this time round was "Down to earth". Glad that I've made the right decision to attend their concert again this year. Hee hee....

Compared to last year's concert, this time round, the stage was done in a very innovative way. Other than the usual main stage, there were two runways which led to another smaller temporary movable stage. There were also more interaction between the singers & their fans in this way as those sitting near the runway got to "touch" their idols. Haha... Although I'm not one of those lucky ones (coz mine was not the top-priced tix. Haha), I still got a very close view of the band members when they came to the movable stage. Then I went crazy snapping pics of them. Wahahaa.....

They managed to make the crowd really high after their 6th or 7th song where they sang their more popular songs. I sreamed & sang until my voice almost go hoarse too. Wahaha.... It was so fun & enjoyable! :)

Most parts of the concert turned out to be much more better than last year's. However, I think that the choices of songs for last year's concert were much better than this time. I wasn't familar with a few songs sung this year and somehow, at certain points, it just didn't bring the mood of the concert to the peak.

Anyway, I'm just looking forward to Mayday's upcoming album now.

And yes, Mayday, YOU ROCK!!! :)

Two days of leave!

I got 2.5 day of leave to be cleared before it gets forfeited in May. Having too little leave (only a standard 15 days a year!) really requires a careful planning of leave taking. Initially, I planned for a week-long holiday next week since Labour day is on Thurs & Fri is co's holiday. But last min had to change plan & ended up clearing my 2 days of leave yesterday & today. Hee hee...

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and we made the right choice of bringing Oscar out to Sentosa. He was very excited to see us dressed up & packing his bag of barang barang (yes! He knows that's his bag!!) and he just kept following me around the house when I carried his bag. Yah, he knew that we would not bring his bag out without him. Smart dog! Hee hee.....

On our journey to Sentosa, he just wouldn't stop looking out of the windscreen of the car, wondering where we were bringing him to. As we approached the Sentosa beach, he somehow knew that we were reaching our destination & kept whining. Finally, we reached the beach nd he went all crazy, running around and erhh....urinating around, trying to mark his territories. Yah, small trees, big trees, lamp post & even at a shade where people had placed their belongings at. Such a cute, naughty dog! Take one look of him enjoying the breeze at the nice sandy beach:

Surprisingly, the sea was very blue yesterday and it just didn't look like Sentosa. Haha...

Lazy Oscar tried to hide escape from the sun by hiding under the wooden benches. In the end, we gotta drag him out. So funny. Haha....

It was a lovely weekday afternoon spent at Sentosa. We were pretty lucky to spot Michelle Chia, Thomas Ong & Julian Hee shooting at the beach too. :)

However, on my way home, I had gastric pain out of a sudden. Really sudden coz I've been eating quite abit since morning and my one & only gastric pain record was during my JC days. I wondered why it happened this time. I took a nap when I got home and halfway through my nap, I felt something on my bed. It was Oscar! I guess he must have felt bored coz no one was playing with him. He put his favourite ball ball on the bed and wanted me to play with him. He climbed onto the bed & licked me before getting off the bed & waited for me to throw the ball for him to catch. It was so sweet of him to give me a lick first. Hee hee....

Thank goodness, the pain was gone after a rest. Hee hee....So all these rounded up my 1st day of leave. :)

Today was a much more relaxed day after a day out in the sun yesterday. It started off with dim sum lunch at Ah Yat (shall be reviewed soon!) followed by a lame movie, "Harold & Kumar" before hitting the gym for pump & combat. Then home sweet home.

Gotta be back for work tmr!

Well, still got half a day of leave to be cleared on next Tuesday. It coincides with Ben & Jerry free cone day! Yeah!! Probably I should go & queue for a cone? Or maybe one cone after another?? Wahahahaa.....

Lunch with Yebber & Chalet

Today I gave the gym class a miss since there's a lunch gathering with Yebber & fellow Yebber Ambassadors. Hee hee... It was a nice lunch at Laguna National Golf and Country Club. Haha... again, lots of pictures of FOOD were taken. Luckily, we still managed to take some pics of we people. Haha... Really thank Yebber for the lunch! :)

After lunch, I went off to Aloha Loyang chalet to meet my uni frds for a gathering. Haha...this gathering was a little different from our previous gathering as every one of them brought their partners along. A big gathering! It was definitely an enjoyable get-together filled lots of laughter during the dinner & games. Haha...although at first i thought that it's somehow weird & would not be that fun without barbeque at chalet but it turned out to be quite well with delivered cooked food. Yeah, we ordered the "golden pillow", which actually consisted of curry chicken kept in a big loaf of bread. Actually it was quite nice :) As for games, the most tiring one was probably the "maffias & spy", where you gotta find out who were the maffias by deciding on the reliability of what each player said. Tired tired!! But it was fun! Hee hee....

Thank goodness that I don't have to travel all the way home on my own back from loyang. Thanks to WL & bf for giving me a lift. Hee hee....

*Yawn* Really gotta sleep now. Hope to go for a jog before gym tmr!! :)

Tree Planting

Yeah, today was my co's community day. Theme for this year - Tree Planting!!!

But the activity did not start until afternoon. In other words, I still gotta work in the morning. Sigh...anyway, on my usual way to work, I received a call from Ah ma! Oh well, Ah ma is a nickname given to one of my uni friends, she not my real ah ma (grandmother), ok? Haha....

Yeah, she's been in Boston for her attachment since last Sept and this was the first time that I got a call from her. What a pleasant surprise early in the morning. Hee hee....

Yeah, got to discuss abit about our plan to explore California either in August or end of the year. Hope things go as plan. But gotta survive some 18hrs of flight. OMG! My longest flight so far was the one to Turkey which took 10+hrs. Hope to confirm o the details for the trip soon. I'm so excited!! Hee hee....

Oh, back to the trees. Yah, we were pretty lucky that the afternoon was bright and sunny after the heavy rain in the morning. It was so funny to see my colleagues drying their socks in the oven, and some used the heat guns in the lab to blow dry their wet shoes in the morning. Haha....

We reached Changi connector park around 1.30pm and after the regional head gave his speech, off we went to the tree planting site to witness the planting of the 1st 2 trees by all the division heads. Finally, it was our turn! We had been splitted up into 4 groups to plant the trees at different parts of the park & I belonged to the yellow team. 5 other colleagues & I got the spade & shovel before starting to dig the ground. Haha...very soon after, we planted 3 trees!!! Haha...that's was fun! Here's one of our little tree.....

The event soon ended with some refeshments followed by a closing speech by my director. Hope to go back some day to look at the trees which I have planted. Well, that's provided that I can recognise them. Haha....

We will ROCK YOU!

Wednesday evening is always a day which we'll usually take a break from gym. Yeah, our body needs a break from all the workout as well. Haha.... So what's up for the evening??

Hmm....

Hmm...hmm....

Orhhh!!!


On impulse (sort of), we decided to grab 2 tickets to watch the musical, 'We will ROCK you"! Yah, it's really my 1st time to buy a musical ticket and the next moment, we are sitting in the theatre. Well, in a way, the feeling is just so different from buying a movie ticket then go into a movie theatre to watch a show. Probably it's the price of a musical ticket which will make you plan & think twice before deciding whether to watch it. Haha...in this case, we bought a pair of cat 2 tickets ($120 each, thanks for the treat too!) & then we are in for a ROCK Nite!

Halfway through the concert, we did a "self-upgrading" of seats to the cat 1 seats ($140 for each ticket!) since there were many seats left empty in the cat 1 area. Haha....but based on what we have observed, those from other lower-priced categories have been upgraded to better seats as well since the area which they should occupy originally was empty for the nite. Aiyah, if that's really th case, we should have gotten ourselves cheaper tickets so that we could still get the upgrade. Anyway, the lesson learnt is to watch musical on a weekday, where price is lower & audience group is smaller and of ocurse to get cheap cheap tickets then pray hard for seats ypgrade. Haha.... Gonna practise these next time!

On the overall, I quite like the way the musical has been put up. Their dance and singing were fabulous! But of course for this musical, it involved lesser fanciful props. Unlike the previous musicals, 'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', which I have attended last year. Nevertheless, the performance was still done very well by the great actors, actresses and dancers. Yeah! Furthermore, they even added in some "local flavours" in their script to make it more interesting.

Feel so much like dancing after the musical. Rock Rock ROCK!!

Family Day!

Yesterday was a happy day for me & for my family as well. Finally, we have our family gathering again and again, it was organised by me. But anyway, so long as everyone's happy, I don't mind organising it every time. Hee hee....

Well, dad's birthday falls on April 16th. Wish him a very happy birthday in advanced! Yeah, so for yesterday evening, my family & of course LLT went out to celebrate dad's birthday. Wah, had a hard time deciding on where to bring my family to for dinner. Since it's a rare chance that my family gathers for dinner nowadays, I was really afraid to choose a dining place which they might not like. After some thoughts, I decided to bring my family the Plaza Market Cafe for buffet since my parents have been quite keen on goig fo one(erh...though they are not really big eaters!).

Dinner was fun, where we chatted and laughed alot as we ate. Also, we took lots of pics. Hee hee.... After dinner, took my parents on a nice stroll around cityhall area. Yeah, took lots of pics at the Esplanade, with the Sg Flyer in the background, the Merlion, etc. Haha....took some funny pics too. Felt so much like a tourist in Sg. Haha....Little did we realised that time passed so fast then and it was almost midnite when we left the place. So tired by the time we got home & we still gotta work today. Yah, I guess that explained why I got a bad runny nose today. Lousy me! But I still think it's worth it, for all those fun we had yesterday. Hee hee.... Just hope I'll recover after a good sleep tonite.

I should sleep early then. Gd nite & sweet dreams! zzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzz

Choir Concert

In support of my dearest ex-tutee, Lakshmi, I purchased 2 tickets to watch her choir performance tonight. Hee Hee....

The concert was held at Victoria Concert Hall. Well, it's been a couple of years since I last attended a concert there. Yeah, the concerts I've attended recently were held either at the Singapore Indoor Stadium or Expo Hall. Well, to be true, those were the pop song concerts. Haha... Unlike this time round, a choir concert!

The concert started off with an interesting song, "One a Twenty", sung by the choir. So why do I say that this song is interesting? Basically, the piece was done in a way which requires it to be partly spoken and partly sung close to pitch. A pretty lively song to start with as well. To make the concert a little more interesting, there was a guest performance by another choir group and the concert was ended with a grand finale of Disney movie magic. Basically, the finale was very much like the High School Musical. Lots of singing and dancing. Interesting!

Besides the concert, we ended up getting quite interested in how the teenagers nowadays dress. Well, I guess they've tried to dress in their very best for the evening. However, many just ended making themselves look weird. Hmm...in a way, I do think that teenage years is an awkward period where you are "neither here nor there" (no longer kids but not adults yet) and have not much idea on how to dress appropriately. Looking at the teenagers who have attended the concert, I started to ponder how I look like when I was about their age. Well, ermm, some 10+ years back? Was I like them back then?? Haha....Looking back at my pictures taken back in those days, OMG! Can't believe that's me. The silly-looking me! Haha....

Bad morning but I got New Snowball!

This morning there was a train disruption again! I was happily sleeping on the train then when the train stalled at Yew Tee. I opened my eyes to check my surrounding and heard the PA system informing passengers to alight the train and go via the train towards Marina Bay to reach our destination. Erhhhh.... I work at Buona vista & I was already at Yew Tee then yet I need to take towards Marina bay again??!!

Not willing to do that, I decided to try out my luck by taking the one & only bus outside Yew Tee MRT which brought me to CCK, in hope thatbe some there'll be some buses there which will bring me to Buona vista or at least somewhere near my work place. Went over to CCK MRT to check on the situation 1st, and I realised that an accident had occurred at CCK. So many policemen & paramedics around then. The MRT station was just as chaotic as Yew Tee and I'm just like a fugitive trying to get out of the place. Only other way out was to board a bus from CCK interchange to get out of the place. Well, sadly, only one bus was available and it would bring me to Jurong East. But queue for the bus was super duper long. Two fully-packed buses left & I was still nowhere near the front of the queue. After waiting for a good half hour or so, we were informed that the train service had resumed. So happy then!!! FINALLY!!!

But again, there was some miscommunication. I managed to board a train but due to some miscommunication, we were made to alight from the train then again told that the same train could be boarded again. There I saw a very ungentleman-ly guy who dashed for the seat & squeezed a lady out of the seat. Singaporean guys! Sigh....

Finally finally!! I managed to reach my office just before 10am. I was dead tired by then.
Just then, I spotted a box containing a mini snowball on my desk. Addressed to 'Gou Gou', which is me. I was totally delighted! Hee hee.... the snowball even comes with a melody of "You are my sunshine" when you press the base of it. Like it so much! Really thank Jo for it. I guess she knew of my previously broken snowball so bought another one for me. So nice of her!!!

Here it is, Da Dang!!!



**Update**
Later, I heard that it was a suspected suicide at CCK MRT & the 40+ years old man died in the accident. Sigh...I really wonder why lately there's so many cases of suicide on MRT platform? probably it's the easiest & faster way of suicide. But It's definitely the most painful & disgusting way to die. I saw pics of it before it really looked gruesome. Furthermore, it caused so my disruption to people's life & probably gonna be hated & cursed by some of them. Don't you agree with me?

Quarter life Crisis?

This morning, a few colleagues & I gathered (we are sort of the older gang in our lab, either in terms of age or experience. wahaha) in a corner of the lab, not so much to gossip but to talk about our plan for the future. Hmm...future in the current job seems bleak, unless I don't mind staying as a RA for the rest of my life. But the thing is I do mind. I don't wish to be the one doing all the experiments yet not always clear of what I am doing, why I am doing and for who I am doing the things for. I don't want to be stuck at the bottom of the flat hierarchy forever and fighting for all the little things which means nothing to me yet are the only things which can be used to so-called prove my ability in the company. It's just makes me a tired at times.

To many of us, now the work just seems so monotonous & everyday we are just waiting for lunch, then at 5.30pm, time to knock off. Then wait for monthly pay-day. I don't know if it's my current project or after staying on the job for almost 4 years now which makes me feel a little demoralised and lost now. Hope this feeling go away soon.

Anyway, I've also started to take some actions on my plans for the future. Still hope to future studies. Well, just submitted a proposal to my boss & I'm now waiting for a reply. Hope it's a positive one! :) If not, I guess it's probably time to move on to elsewhere.