The "Super Sonic"Term

What has happened during these long absence?

As usual, going to bed after past mid-night, waking up before dawn, running at my full speed to hop on to the last bus, dozing off during lessons after a heavy, but "not at all nutritious and super expensive (bo hua; not worth the value)" lunch, being half dead when school ends, completing the mountain heap assignments and pathetically I still haven't complete the whole lot yet.... My Super Sonic school term.

But like matching concept, the amount of work done must match with the amount of pleasure enjoyed so as to achieve an equilibrium point and to prevent "mental disorientation". There's no way that I can keep on moving like a zombie without resting and having fun.

Here are some of the highlights:

My "romantic" candle-light dinner:

At home, of course, haha

One evening during dinner, after pouring for the entire afternoon, the rain got subsidised. But our house got infested by these irritating files, which yield out a small amount of fine silvery powder that causes irritation to the skin. We have no choice but to switch off all the lights and lit up candles so as to chase all these unwanted guests away!

A Stir-fried Caterpillar found in a heap of Veggie!!!

Chu Ting bought the dish from Wok-Delight in the school canteen, supplied by the illustrious GT Food Supply. And while eating half-way through, she discovered that little weird blue thing, which happened to be a caterpillar in a heap of the green leafy veggie! And here's something that's funny, I stupidly thought that this was just a harmless fragments of a broken kitchen appliance at first when Chu Ting dug out the caterpillar because it looked rigid and blue! GROSS!!! My appetite practically drained off after the commotion!

And guess what? Mrs Wong said is was quite common for caterpillars to be found in the leafy vegetables as they are worms feed on vegetables! What the heck! I am skeptical about her explanation. If the cook is serving the food for his own stomach, surely he will wash the veggie thoroughly to rinse off the dirty particles, chop off the rotten parts, make sure that the pots and utensils were clean and the kitchen is HYGIENIC before cooking!

I swear that I will never buy any form of vegetables from that store again.
I also swear that once I steeped out of school, I will never order any food from GT Food Supply. I had enough of that! Remember folks, its GT FOOD SUPPLY...

AKE fund-raising Concert

Overall, it is a delightful school concert! For some pieces, they have created both visual and audio impacts to the audience! Nice!

However, that female singer which they had hired to sing for the concert was really a bad bad bad choice! Seriously I can't believe that they had actually PAID her to sing! The concert would score better without her singing. Though neither her voice is those grating type nor those croaking bullfrog type, it was not pleasant to listen. This is mainly because there was a couple of times she sang out of tune, she couldn't hit the notes and she was out of breathe after singing a long phase. In a way, she has covered the melody with an unrefined vocal.

I could imagine that if I have brought Diana to the concert, she would be so horrified by the singing that in the end, I may end up looking more at her comical reactions than at the performance.

GP Exam and Sports Day

Vesak-day Celebration:
Candlelit Procession through the temple (传灯) at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Temple

Part of Phor Kark See Temple

Congratulations to Erika!
She is now the prestigious SIA air stewardess, who is undergoing the 4 months grilling training. You go gal!!! yea!

Through Erika, I get to slip onto the SIA kebaya. The kebaya reeks with elegance! I lack the maturity when I wore and paraded with it. My cute bro, ying song, also slip on the the kebaya skirt to annoy me that he got fabulous long slender legs. Damn, the skirt really look good on his legs! I sooo envious!

I know I sounded like an idiot, but it was also my first time seeing so much make-up products... besides the compact powder, blusher and lipstick, there's the concealer,the brow and lip pencil, eye-liner, foundation....

Feast at Peking Restaurant at JB

yum yum

LCCI Exam (today)

I wonder who's that idiot who switch the air con down to 16℃, because I am going to skin him alive! I nearly got frozen to death after the whole exam. My sit was just directly below the air-con. My fingernails had turned dead purple-like after half an hour in the exam room, my teeth started to clatter, my whole arms filled with cold bumps, my fingers were numb. It was just like living in an igloo with no winter-clothing on.

St Nicks' Carnival

Going for carnivals is a sticky and sweaty affair. People squeezing into the crowds, music blasting out loud through PA system, enthusiastic student, teacher and parent volunteers waving, shouting to draw attention to promote the goods they had, stimulated the heat and sweat into the surroundings.

2 weeks ago, I went for the SNGS carnival at AngMio Kio. Whoa! The PHS carnival which I had attended last year was nothing compared to this. St Nick had house every fun thing into their huge compound. A basement packed with arcade games machines, Uncle Ringo at the carpark, Acuvue contacts, Katjies, Super and many other generous sponsorship and a 24 hr school marathon at their stadium, I am quite sure that they had managed to get the funds required to build their new campus right under their belt.

CIP Day at Red Cross Home for the disabled

Last thur was CIP Day!! Our class went to the Red Cross Home for the disabled at Bukit Timah (not sure).. to help out and interact with the residents.

The school as usual has provided us with a one-way transport to our venue. Though it was quite near our school, but I can assure you that if I were to be going there by myself, I won't be able to even locate it with my poor sense of direction! LOL! The home was very---ulu..it was hidden deep inside a corner of the estate. There is a narrow pathway joined at the main road and a small inconspicuous sign leading to the home.

The building of the home was very run-down, a fresh coat of paint was badly needed to liven up the surroundings. It was really a stark contrast to the new condos outside the home opposite the main road. The compound was rather clean but the atmosphere was bad---it was gloomy...

The senior nurse, nurse Lee, brought us to the small conference room. Inside the conference room, there was this "high-honour" board that took up 3/4 of the right-side of the wall, was used to record down the donors and their significant amount of money donated generously to the home as a form of appreciation. Surprisingly, almost all the amount contributed was 5-figure digits, near towards the high end. I was wondering why with such sufficient amount of funds, the condition of the home should be more chirpy.

This query was answered shortly when nurse Lee began the introduction and the briefing of what we would be doing for the next 4 hours. The home consisted of 84 resisdents, age ranging from 4-61 years old. All of them were phyically disabled, while some were also intellectually or were slightly mentally disabled. Most of the care-takers were fillippinos and they lived in dormitories, segregrated at one side of the building.

Since we would also be helping to feed the resisdents as drafted in our proposal, we were also told that there were different diets catering to different residents. Some were on the full (normal) diet, while others were on soft or liquid diets. A small minority of them had to be fed through tubes, which I presumed they were on liquid diet, required more professional help. Some of the young children required special formula milk. One tin of such milk powder (dunno how big the tin is) can fetch up to the price of $30/tin! Expensive tins of milk powder, diapers (all resisdents wore diapers), accomadation, labour... No wonder there wasn't much funds left for infrastructure.

We also went for a tour around the building. Some of the wards were filled with those funny-sourly smell which maybe due to the lack of exposure of the sun. It was quite scary at the first go. It seemed that we had stepped into some kind of mental institution as some of the residents, sitting on wheelchairs along the corridors, kept screaming, making strange noises, while others were bound onto the bed or their hands were swaddled with cloth to prevent them from constantly scratching themselves, kept twitching and turning on the bed. It was later explained that these movements were just involuntary actions which they used to express themselves.

The most memorable time would be the feeding session. I had never done anything like this before, so initially I thought it might be quite a simple task. Afterall, it was feeding, in another way, it was eating!! Everybody's favourite!! But, nay, there were some skills and techniques invovled. It was not as easy as it sounds like.

I was assigned to feed this blind male resident who is on soft diet. He was bornt in 1987 as written, 2 years older than me. I was given a bowl of porridge and was instructed to stir constantly, make sure that it was not too hot for eating. At the 1st attempt, I placed the spoonful of porridge near to his mouth, but his didnt respond. Ms Liao then helped me by placing it onto his lips and tadaa--- he opened his mouth and gulped down the porridge. Feeding took up about 20 mins, occassionally I accidentally dripped some porridge at the corners of his lips and was constantly wiping his lips with the cloth placed around his neck.

Through this CIP, I felt more thankful to just been borned healthy with normal limbs. I perenially complained about how short I am, how unlucky I am, how.... Looking beneath these grumbles carefully, actually that's just some superficial stuff that holds not much agony.