Refusal Part I

Spent a busy night at office last on friday nite, mainly doing lesson preparation and some administrative work for the upcoming course i'll be conducting. I was dead beat when i reached home on Saturday morning. I probably oni had ard 3 hours of good sleep in the afternoon. Because of my REFUSAL to spend my precious saturday SLEEPING. The remaining hours of the day was spent at the Prawn Farm located beside the Crocodile farm. My sister and her new bf seemed to be addicted to this new hobby of 'prawn fishing' at this place, so I give myself this opportunity to experience it for myself.

Being an idiot in fishing, i have ZERO knowledge on this activity and yesterday was the 1st time i hold a fishing rod in my 25 years of life (sounds like a frog in a well). Quite a fresh experience for me and i was surprised by the standard and pricing of the 煮炒 stall there...it's pretty good! There's BBQ pits there for us to BBQ the prawns we captured also...

Check out the prawns we've captured

My brother in law decides to bring back a few prawns home to keep in his fish tank.....check out one of them:

And this is the final fate of the prawns we've captured. they taste EXCELLENT and FRESH!

That's how i spent my saturday from 4pm to 11pm yesterday....

博君一笑

This is funny..to those who understand Hokkien

What stress can do to a person

No very interesting activites over the past week for me. Except that SH has given birth to a cute baby gal on Sunday. KH oso become a father on last fri when his wife gave birth to a baby daughter oso....Congrats! Today is oso LQ birthday! Happy birthday!

I received 2 smses from my ex teachers back in Clementi Town on monday nite while i was doing my nite shift. It was regarding CTSS 26th Anniversary Reunion Dinner cum Fund raising for their new building's non standard facilities. I've done my part to try to gather pple from my class to form a table...which is still possible even though we haf graduated 10 years already! But...unfortunately, none of us is interested...even myself...think of it this way...We gotta pay $80 per head to dine in an open space! and to eat a low quality 8 course dinner(our expectation of the meal standard), and also haf almost no time to interact with our ex teachers...cos they will be so busy wif their own work and to entertain other students. We certainly think that it's not worth it. Becos of that, i replied one of my teacher that most of us find the cost too expensive and hence we are not keen....this was the reply I've received from her:

"pls tell your friends that the 80 bucks is less than the amount u can get from all the help, support, coaching from all ur teachers in the 4 years in CTSS. Is that what they hv learnt in sch? 忘本 and no 饮水思源???"

On reading that msg, the 1st instinct to me was that:

• the response for the dinner muz be damn poor that teachers are getting the pressure and stress; and they are starting to call up any ex student whom they can contact with.
• WTH, y is she using such an 'commanding' tone in this message?? y is she using such strong words like 忘本 and 饮水思源?????? Didn't she know that i'm no longer wear the white and brown uniform???

Because i still respect her as my teacher, i did not rebuke and just sent her a "i'll try to persuade them again msg" reply.

I called up XY, my former classmate from CTSS, and also that teacher's cousin to discuss about the issue, and complaint about how unhappy i was to see that msg....

If i wanna rebuke her, i could jolly well say that:

• i agree that i owe my success to some of my teachers in CTSS, but unfortunately, the one whom i'm most indebted to has already left the sch.....With the $80, i rather treat her to a buffet at Ritz Carlton, and $80 is probably enuff to cover the cost for 2 person.
• you dun haf to use such commanding tone on me, even though i still respect u as my teacher.
• My class can easily haf a reunion dinner anytime we want and $80 per head is probably sufficient for us to REUNION for a few times at an even more comfortable dining environment.
• It's insulting to use money to value how much we feel for our teachers. I'm so sure that my most respected teacher will not say such things to me.

I do understand what stress can do to a person, because i believe she is one of the organizer for the event, and she is under intense pressure to produce the desired outcome. So this serves as a lesson to myself too.....

Out of boredom at home few days ago, i've decided to try out a few tests and it yielded the following results:

You Are 42% Feminine, 58% Masculine

You are in touch with both your feminine and masculine sides. You're sensitive at the right times, but you don't let your emotions overwhelm you. You're not a eunuch, just the best of both genders.

Are You Masculine or Feminine?

You Are 56% Open Minded

You are a very open minded person, but you're also well grounded. Tolerant and flexible, you appreciate most lifestyles and viewpoints. But you also know where you stand firm, and you can draw that line. You're open to considering every possibility - but in the end, you stand true to yourself.

How Open Minded Are You?

You Are 64% Pure

Well, you're not exactly an angel - but you're pretty darn close. But chances are, you have a couple juicy secrets deep in your closet.

How Pure Are You?

I dunno how true they are....Up to you all to judge.

Anyway last nite....i was interrogated by this person........and i dunno how cum the conversation somehow lead to sensitive issues like relationship.....and even more.......Again, i was questioned on why I remained a Bachelor even though i've reached an age of 25, and i was pretty disturbed when a comment was made on me.......

What i can say is: 千金易得，知己难求. I would not go into a relationship becos I want 'something that all guys want'. I dun blame the person for not understanding me enuff, becos we only known each other for less than 2 mths. My stand is that i would rather remain at my present status than to change my status for the wrong person and wrong reason. Something i am very sure is that I would not resort to deviant behaviors and this incident is sufficient to prove that. Somehow seeing 2 like poles on the streets together makes me feels disgusted. I may accept my frens who belong to this category, but that doesn't mean that i am likely to indulge myself in it....

I hope this is a satisfactory answer to your doubts about me. Trust that there is no hard feelings involved, but somehow i got quite tired always gotta explain my stand over and over again, though some find it lame, but that's my stand.

Withdrawal symptoms

Feel so refreshed, becos i hardly haf the opportunity to sleep for 11 hours, which i did yesterday. normally i would be woken up by my bio clock after about 7 hrs of sleep. fortunately i din haf to work today, so i got some time to talk abt some of the happenings over the past 2 days.

Sunday had a great time meeting my most respected teacher of my life, whom i've always taken as a role model of mine. We shared abt our experiences of teaching and was glad to know that i was identified as her only student whom she'll impart all her skills as a teacher to. I realise we have a very common similarity, becos we firmly believe in the concept of INTEGRITY in self and on the students. Of course i've gotten some good advice from her on how i could handle the students better and also i was exposed to some dark side of office politics which could possibly happen to me....about jealousy by colleagues, leading to irrational behavior and unscrupulous actions that i ought to be beware of, and how i could protect myself to prevent all these from happening. i oso took some effort to cook her an exceptionally healthy meal...no deep frying or stir drying involved. low salt, fat and calories. just soup and steaming. She knew me so well, even my viewpoints on work, family and relationship, which i dare to say that very very few pple even know abit cos i dun like to share such personal issues. and was glad to know that she totally agreed with my actions and viewpoints that i am doing what i should be doing :)

watercress pork rib soup, but wk accidentally added too much red dates into it...

steamed pomfret with wine, sesame seed oil and sour plums

steamed chicken wings with chinese herbs

this final dessert was prepared by her, it's low fat chocolate cake, with butter being replaced by sunflower oil! it taste great and rich!

this gift (a tie pin) was given to me by her as a 'start work' gift

Monday had a pleasant surprise at office, as i found out that my students had done very well for their final exam this time round...good job pple, u've proven yourselves that if you wanna do it, you can do it! and you have did it WITH INTEGRITY! but the headache comes when i had to give them their final grade for the training. It's a tough decision as i believe most of them deserves a reasonably good grade for their effort, but in life there's limitations and rules to follow. The lowest percentile pple haf to get the shit, and only this VERY small number of pple can obtain the grade that everybody wans.

It was yesterday that i felt this very long lost feeling that i do not haf to race against time every minute at office or even have to bring my work home every nite to mark log books or prepare for nx day practicals. Quite unused to such feelings, I was kept occupied by helping out to take the ITE students on the DCS panel and also by the conference in the afternoon when me and LK gave a presentation on basic first aid to treat common possible injuries that can happen to our loved ones and oso trainees here.

习惯这样 词曲唱: 戴佩妮 (listen to this song here)

已习惯在没有你的下雨夜里

这样一杯冰冷的咖啡

整理整夜的思绪想想过去

只为了证明我对你没有暂停

想起你总习惯在这样的一个夜里

担心我的爱不够彻底 你怀疑我的心

我该如何学会让你相信

原来在我的眉目之间可以感觉

多一点一些些的愁绪紧紧的夹在中间

彷佛在你的视线后面依稀感觉

少一点一些些的勇气面对你

习惯这样的距离 习惯这样的你的背影

习惯这样 这样的你 习惯这样 (这样的你习惯这样)

习惯这样的你 习惯这样

NP3 Oct 06 Graduation Ceremony Part 1

6 weeks of training has finally come to an end. I tink I've relayed all my 'last words' to my students, sufficiently concise and clear, so i shall not nag or about them further. Here are some photos taken during shift training, probably at around 3-4am in the morning when most of them are already shagged out, but this grp of students were still pretty awake then:

So sickening that it's not easy to take pictures with my fone though, becos it is easily 'shaken' and images always become blur...i tot this would be a good shot, if it's clear...

this last shot was taken with the 4 'Charles Law Angels' of my class. it's originated from a tutorial session on distillation concepts (if i did not remember wrongly), when i intentionally checked thru their assignments and coincidentally found out that the 4 of them had written identical answers for 1 particular question--*Winks*. Y i paid such particular attention was that they uninamously written the word 'Charles Law' in one of the answers, and this was one mistake which i spotted from the model answers as it was WRONG to answer that question using 'Charles Law'--*Winks*. So from that moment on, I started to call this grp of girls the 'Charles Law Angels/ Ladies' always in an attempt to make fun of them, but harmlessly lar....So a note to my future students...dun copy model answers from your seniors.....we know it....

Was arrowed to be the Emcee for the graduation ceremony though, and relunctantly, i had to give a short introductory speech to the students....i bet my students muz be saying to themselves "Not again"...hahaha...but i had tried to keep it within 2 mins...of heartfelt nagging...hhahhaah.

Hope to get the 2nd set of pictures from "舞娘" soon. Wat a pity did not manage to see him dance during the graduation ceremony.

To all students: Keep in touch! All the Best!

New Challenges awaits!

3 days of shift training had officially ended, and the training of my 1st batch of students is officially coming to an end, after their final exams tmr. Fond memeries of each group of students will be with me for the rest of my life, esp with this group of interesting, fun loving and adorable students. In fact, all students are adorable in my eyes, be it this grp of students from NP, or my former students from PRSS, or FTPSS. As usual, I always like to use the comparison taught to me by my most respected teacher MS about the teacher - student theory:

"Teachers and students are just like 2 ships sailing in opposite direction"

To put it plainly in Chinese, it just simply means 萍水相逢. Though each union is short lived, but during this short period of interaction, I've gone thru numerous shared experiences had learning experiences which in one way or another turned me into a mroe mature and intellectual individual. I hope i've imparted them wif knowledge and values which can benefit them for the rest of their life, of course, i'm practical about this as i still understand that i can never change each and every individual, i'll be glad if i can change the life of just 1 person though. I'll remember to give credit to them oso, for giving me the push to truly top up my technical knowledge to become a more competent trainer for the future batches of students.

After they graduate this friday, I would be tied down wif more work and new challenges, becos I will be assuming another demanding role as a shift leader for another group of students and also i will be teaching another course for the industry people. I look forward to the future and I'll also look forward to take another group of poly students whom i tink shld be coming early next year. I also sincerely wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

I decide to end off this post wif this song, which i could not understand y my students are so mesmerized wif it. I heard of this song b4, but i neva took an extra effort to pay further attention to it, until my students kept bringing it up during the shift training days. This song is called <我爱台妹> sang by MC Hotdog. Listen to the song here

我本善良

Recently haf been hooked to old HK serials, esp those in the late 80s and early 90s....i still remember those days when my mum would sit in front of the TV every weekday without fail at 6pm to catch the HK serials casted on RTV2. Cos all were dubbed in cantonese then (shown on malaysian channel), and i could hardly understand a cantonese word then, wat i could vaguely remember was oni the names of the serials and the actors and actresses. Finally found this old serial which my mum used to watch, and i believe this serial will accompany me thru some lonely nights somewhere soon :p

The title of this serial is 我本善良...back in 1990 ; casted by some veteran actors like 曾江, who once criticized Singaporean actors and actresses for "有演无技" about a decade ago, which he made an public apology after dat... other casts included 温兆伦，邵美琪，黎美娴, of which the 1st 2 r still active in the HK entertainment industry. I also had a strong impression of its song, and it was only until today that i found out that the song was originally sang by 许志安 (Andy Hui) and the late Heavenly Queen, 梅艳芳 (Anita Mui) .

笑 看 風 雲 變 ( 電 視 劇 《我 本 善 良 》 主 題 曲 )

作 曲 / 編 曲 : 倫 永 亮 / 填 詞 : 潘 偉 源 / 許 志 安

誰 能 跳 過 無 形 界 線

規 則 法 理 充 斥 世 界 千 萬 年

誰 能 賜 我 無 窮 勸 勉

將 我 路 線 一 生 志 向 改 變

從 來 無 後 悔 現 實 我 改 變

休 說 蒼 天 註 定 堅 決 跨 過 目 前

命 運 那 許 虧 欠

沿 途 如 有 你 伴 在 我 身 邊

蒼 天 戲 法 縱 使 騙 人 總 膚 淺

沿 途 如 有 你 以 真 心 相 見

迎 面 暴 雨 縱 使 不 倖 免

亦 笑 著 置 身 長 路 看 風 雲 變

Listen to 笑看风云变 here

Happy Mooncake Festival to all!!

但愿人月两团圆！

A nice time

What else can i say? I fell sick at the correct moment....and very sick though....since Tuesday evening....4 jabs were given to me by the doc. It was the same scenario that happened to me 2 years ago, food poisioning leading to acute gastritis, and i was rushed to NUH A & E becos of wat happened then....Luckily this time round, i detected the identical symptoms much earlier and went to the doctor as soon as i could, so that history dun haf to repeat itself...coincidentally, the root of the problem 2 years ago was due to a Mc Spicy Double, while the root of the problem this year was due to a well intended KFC treat. wat can i say? i juz got my bad luck to blame for getting all the shit. Now i'm still slowly recuperating, hopefully i will be well again by saturday...

EH...i juz recalled it's my lunar birthday today too! Happy birthday to myself!

Last day of Practical

Today marked the end of the long string of practical sessions I've conducted for my 1st form class. Though the preparatory work proved to be tough most of the time (since it's my 1st time taking a form class), but i do njoy wat i do, and most importantly, i'm glad for myself that i dare to say that I held a clear conscience to this grp of students that i did not 'bluff' my way thru the lessons as i feel that it's something i believe i shld not be doing. The practical sessions is ended by a finale on the fire fighting ground.....all my students got COMPLETELY DRENCHED during the session, but it was fun though as i got the 1st chance to 'play' with my students by squeezing water from my wet glove onto their body. check out these photos i've taken wif my class today:

fire suit worn by the female fire warden, Fel, and Hass

Class photo taken at office. It's pretty obvious which one is me.....

I've taken a video this morning when the 2 fortunate students were wearing their turnout suit this morning, but unfortunately, youtube forbidded me from publishing the video becos it exceeds the 10 min limit...:s

Time reali flies, and in 5 more training days, these students will be graduating...we are only left wif the final lap to go, the 2 N 1 D of shift training!

Lack of Exercise

The busiest days of practicals are finally coming to an end, with the last event, and a rather simple practical left for me to conduct. For the past 2 weeks, I was so busy that I could hardly find time to exercise, but I still got the guts to go for 2 'huge buffets' once, for each of the 2 weeks. Yup, I was back at Sakura for 2 different occasions. Friday, I was back at Sakura to celebrate ML birthday. Felt so bad that I was unable to attend her ROM ceremony wif WK becos I had to be tied down wif work. So even though I made an appointment earlier to go to KTV wif my Uni buddies, I had to forgo it at ALL cost to celebrate her birthday...Hehe..... I dun tink I need to advertise how good the food is at Sakura further, as my Uni classmates had already branded me as the SPOKESMAN for the restaurant. As usual, I was so full after the meal that i juz felt too lethargic to move....

Becos I had been so sinful the day before, yeterday, I decided to go for a DETOX mission, juz to eat fruits and salad for dinner. All the setup was prepared by my sis...Doesn't it look good????

Time reali flies, and in 7 more training days, my 1st batch students will be graduating, and once they graduate, I'll be going on shift duty....and suddenly this retro song juz came into my head and I tink i shld share it over here.

那一段日子词/曲:巫启贤 编曲:吴庆隆

听到DJ又播出那一首歌

一首令我深深感触的歌

发生在啤酒周围的故事

还有住过的房子

昨天又接到一个问候的电话

禁不住又谈起那一段日子

曾经为了我我失恋的伤痛

你们陪我流泪痛哭

多少次我们夜里漫步谈谈人生与前途

多少次地酒後真情流露

而今我只能抱着吉他

望着天空里星星无数

唱着你们写下的爱情故事

那年的世界杯我们还看着电视

为了足球明星共同欢呼

冬冬和Rocky在门边互相追逐

没有人夜里独处

你们都喜欢穿我表演的衣服

曾在演唱会里抱头痛哭

友情对我来说是另一种财富

在心灵上不再孤独

多少次我们夜里漫步谈谈人生与前途

多少次地酒後真情流露

而今我只能抱着吉他望着天空里星星无数

唱着你们写下的爱情故事

Listen to this song here

此歌曲由音乐视听2000提供 http://www.real2000.org/

I always find that this song is a perfect song for a graduation, and this song used to be my sister's favourite during her teenage days; and i knew this song since i was a small kid in kindergarden though. many pple might not know, the singer of this song was actually my senior from the Junior College I've studied in. I remembered clearly that he came to the college of a mini concert when i was in pre U 1. I dare to say that i'm one of the very very few who could sing along wif him for almost every song he sang then, becos I love his retro songs for they are juz so meaningful, touching songs with nice melodies :)