Thursday, June 29, 2006

[Life's worth the little things like when...]

1. Your sister tugs at the bedsheet and makes sure ur legs are fully covered.

2. Your ex-student calls you to tell you he's made it and he wants you to continue teaching him.

3. You're being wooed ;)

Hee =)

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

[question]

when ur friend doesn't accept u for who u are, is that still a friend?

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

[Tourist for a day]

Two Singaporean ladies were spotted this weekend disguising as tourists. Born and bred on the island, the sisters were on a weekend getaway at Conrad Centennial Hotel on a promotional offer. We caught up with them in their 15th storey room overlooking the Fountain of Wealth.

"We wanted a break and since we heard about this offer, we thought why not give it a try. So far, we've been shopping at Suntec City and we just returned from viewing the colourful light display at the world's largest fountain," commented the girls, who were trying hard to spot a half-baked English accent.

Princess, 23, and Precious, 16, [names have been concealed to protect identity] were impressed by the excellent service provided in the grand hotel - from a luxurious bedroom complete with a mini-bar and iron board, to a spacious bathroom with a bathtub and shower facilities (and a rubber duckie!) and even greetings from the chambermaid as they walked along the corridoor. Our inspection of the vicinity revealed that there were not many guests staying at the hotel. In fact, other than the few Japanese and Caucasian tourists, many seemed to be locals probably taking advantage of the promotion too. By 9pm, the place was so deserted that the sisters actually had the entire swimming pool to themselves! The buffet breakfast was served by friendly waiters eagerly refilling half-drunk drinks and clearing plates promptly.

When asked if they enjoyed their stay, the sisters instantly replied, "It was worth every penny. It was nice being a tourist for a day, being treated with brilliant service and we'd consider doing something like this again."

P.S. They were reluctant to check out. When they returned home, Princess realised she left behind her new swimming suit in the bathroom. Tsk tsk.

Monday, June 12, 2006

[I want to snooze...for a week...]

Ok, maybe for just a day. I had a terribly busy week last week. Didn't go home directly after work every single day. What was I up to?

Mon: Was supposed to collect my new editing assignment from Mel, but it wasn't ready. So since I had the car, brought Mum (+Jam+Flo) to check out laptops at Courts. It was our shortest shopping trip ever. I think it lasted for less than 30 seconds cos the range was so limited and the prices high. Dinner took longer...about an hour or so. It was really fun b'cos we were crapping and having a really good time. The waiter was pretty impressive...he remembered all our orders without writing anything down, right down to our individual drinks. Cool. After dinner, we picked Auntie up from work - poor Flo was trapped between my mum and aunt...it was really chaotic in the car till I had to make an effort to switch them off so that I could concentrate on the road. Hope flo didn't get scared by the loud bunch that we are!

Tues: Our last Swedish lesson, for now. Cecilia was late returning from her Swedish National Day celebrations and she locked herself out. So we had our lesson by the pool side, al-fresco. It was a convenient setting bcos we were doing conversations anyway. I was having a splitting headache and it really didn't help. I kept forgetting words and saying the wrong thing till Cecilia made me repeat my sentence and I was like...err I forgot what I said. Lol. Not a nice way to end this batch of lessons. We're such enthusiastic students that we'll be meeting up at Gina's place tmr for a Swedish movie with a Swedish dinner (bless her for being such a gracious host). We get to meet Toby too! Her 7 mth old kid. Perhaps he'll blabber to us in Swedish!

Wed: Open mic session at the Library@Esplanade to support Mel's friend. Was glad we went. The first artist, Andrea Hamilton, is really talented. All she had a guitar and a mike (and a keyboard later) and yet her performance was incredible. Hope to catch her again on the 21st. Check out www.andreahamiltononline.com for some of her mp3's. Mel's friend was pretty good too, esp his rendition of Goo Goo Dolls' Iris. Looking forward to hearing him play for us. Mel..organise a get-together so that we can swoon at his music!

Thur: Gym. Where I got really pissed. This is why:
1) Had I not gone to find out how many training sessions I had left, no one wld've told me that my stupid trainer is no longer working there.
2) My stupid trainer is no longer working there. He got caught freelancing during working hours (how ironic, esp after he warned me not to bring my own trainer), had to make a choice btw working at cali and freelancing and I guess he decided the latter pays better.
3) They made me wait so long just to engage a fitness consultant to entertain me. Once when I just arrived, once after I had done my warm up on the treadmill, and they finally paged for the consultant as I was abt to leave. Great service. Remind me what the high membership fees are for again?
4) Fitness consultant pisses me off by saying he needs my plane ticket to verify that I was out of town. Who keeps plane tix tt are 4 mths old? wtf. Plus I already submitted it the wk after I came back. And I already submitted a letter from my head of dept abt my absence AND received a confirmation from cali that my membership had been suspended. He still had the nerve to ask me if I wanted more training after my sessions finished! Well, even tho they're assigning me a senior trainer (I really wonder if that means better service) I told him I was unimpressed by the service so far so there's no way I'm gonna continue.

Fri: Celebrated GH's b'day with AL. She insisted on a surprise so we didn't tell her where we were going. First we went to Thai Express at CityLink. The food there was pretty good. But the Phat Thai noodles I had in BKK was nicer. Went to Max Brenner's 2nd time this wk (1st time on Tues), and that really surprised GH. She's been wanting to go there for a really long time so I guess my suggestion to go there was a good idea. Yay. We walked ard to lose (a few) calories then sat and gossipped..and talked abt relationships. At the end of the day, the qs remaining was: are all guys poor communicators? Anyone care to enlighten us? Quick..before AL gives up on her man...

Sat: Went to see Sue and friends with jam n saki. Sue's a t-rex btw, or at least what's left of a t-rex. I must've not been to the Science Centre for a long time cos I don't remember so many exhibits there. The place looks pretty spruced up, with lots and lots of interesting and colourful exhibits, one experiment after another (tho not all always worked.) Some of the displays were pretty stimulating but then I think I've grown out of the place cos I was yawning a lot. (I guess it could also be bcos I slept late the night before). The simulator ride was pathetic; we didn't know what was going on cos the sound system was so bad. We just knew we were being tossed around left, right, centre. The OmniMax movie had a pretty lame storyline and the effects were nice but we were left quite dizzy after the show (I think jam's enthusiasm abt seeing the show for the first time turned into worry as she started feeling dizzy). The dino exhibit was pretty cool but I think the fossils were not that big (sorry but I saw bigger ones at the London Natural History Museum :P). I was pretty groggy by then so I skipped the dino simulator, which incidentally Jam and Saki said were much better than the first one. Bleah. Oh man, I sound grumpy. Ok ok it wasn't THAT bad...I had fun. Yes I did. We met mum n flo later on to go Sim Lim for more laptop hunting. They said I was too frank when I turned down a good offer by telling the salesman that I was fishing for prices to compare with a wholesaler contact I have. Ooops. Then again, I was caught off guard by his qs so I didn't have time to think up of a lie. tsk tsk. We had Chinese food for dinner then went home. I was dead tired but saki still had the energy to play with her new ipod so I went to sleep in my parents' room. Poor dad had to sleep on my bed hehe.

Sun: Was supp to be the day to rest at home. Instead, after finishing my editing work, I went to a health talk where I was totally bored. And to make things worse, miss annoying lady was there, but luckily she didn't bother me this time. I don't know, but I just get bad vibes from her so I better avoid her so that I can maintain my cool. I left the talk early so that I could go to gym. Then I realised I hadn't had lunch so the threadmill was really too much for me. I gave up after 12 mins and went on to do other stuff. Was pretty enthusiastic with the tummy crunching machines, felt pretty good after the workout. I finally tried the sauna but I didn't stay long. And then finally, got home, rested and relaxed during my well-deserved facial. Su came over to accompany Nad (her friend who does the facials) but I felt pretty bad cos I cldn't entertain her while I was having my facial. And they were keeping quiet so that I could doze off, but amidst saki's typing and printing, I don't think I went that deep into slumber.

I hope this week is less hectic. Today: straight home after work. Phew.

Monday, June 05, 2006

[My Latest Gadget]



I'm so so proud of my latest acquisition - a Canon PowerShot S3 IS. It's a digital SLR, 6 megapix, 12X optical zoom (beat that! and it's so light!), 360 degree view. Bought it at the PC Show at Suntec last Thur. I went off work earlier after asking my prof permission to "attend a function" :P. I fell in love with it pretty quickly but was wondering whether a) I should buy a slim and sleek one that my sis insisted on and b) whether I should spend abt $100 more than the slim and sleek one, which was anyway already (way) out of my budget. The Courts salesman was really enthusiastic, compared to the part-timers at the Canon booth who could just say "yes this is good" when we asked them for recommendations. They had pretty good free gifts, two 512MB SD cards, an SD card reader, a battery charger and a camera bag. I was casually mentioning tripods so the guy went to the store to "check" if there were any left (really lame sales tactic but I'm a sucker for free gifts anyway...). And when he said he'd include a tripod as well, I decided to buy the cam. Pretty good deal I think - all that for $849. I've been wanting an advanced camera, and I since this is the first time I can actually afford one, I really wanted to get it. Far was enticed by the camera too, what with her manual SLR which she took out to "impress" the guy with, so she bought one too. It'll be really cool, now we can exchange tips on taking pics with the cam. And use it on our Hello Panda adventure. Whee!!

My sis was of course not happy when she saw the camera. She was fuming when she saw the picture on the box, and when she opened it, she was like, "what?? so big??? i wanted one that could fit in my handbag!" I told her I'll repair the temperamental Fuji one and give to her. tsk tsk. Looking forward to taking great shots with my cam. Should play around with it a bit so that I can shoot cool stuff on my nature walk this weekend.