Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Monday, August 30, 2004
"Warm fuzzy feeling!"
That's the way I always feel when I go past some landmark which had once been an important part of my life... be it my old school, or someplace I had lived in before.
I was feeling extra fuzzy tonight when we went past McDonald's at Ridout - where I spent many breakfasts feeding the terrapins, having parties, and having stomach upsets - and then up Holland Peak to Jed's place, just a few steps away from Holland Hill Park where I used to live. Viv couldn't join us today again. Hope she's alright. A movie night was planned for tonight, and before that we (ie. + Darren, Jed, Lionel) had dinner at Holland Village. I didn't realise it till I asked, but it was the same noodle shop from which I had always bought the paper box take-aways. It looked so different... so new. All the shops at Holland V change too much and too soon all the time... I can hardly keep up with the pace! At least the pet shop's still there... and the noodle place...
That's the way I always feel when I go past some landmark which had once been an important part of my life... be it my old school, or someplace I had lived in before.
I was feeling extra fuzzy tonight when we went past McDonald's at Ridout - where I spent many breakfasts feeding the terrapins, having parties, and having stomach upsets - and then up Holland Peak to Jed's place, just a few steps away from Holland Hill Park where I used to live. Viv couldn't join us today again. Hope she's alright. A movie night was planned for tonight, and before that we (ie. + Darren, Jed, Lionel) had dinner at Holland Village. I didn't realise it till I asked, but it was the same noodle shop from which I had always bought the paper box take-aways. It looked so different... so new. All the shops at Holland V change too much and too soon all the time... I can hardly keep up with the pace! At least the pet shop's still there... and the noodle place...
Sunday, August 29, 2004
When we were moving house, one of the movers had wrapped this small white oval thing with layers of paper together with some of my keychains (from a forgotten corner of one of my drawers). Little did he know what it was... he must have thought it to be some kind of marble.
It was a gecko egg. I found it when I was unpacking the boxes, and placed it in a little container. It hatched days later, and I took this photo before releasing it. It looks like some little dinosaur. :P
It was a gecko egg. I found it when I was unpacking the boxes, and placed it in a little container. It hatched days later, and I took this photo before releasing it. It looks like some little dinosaur. :P
Why do I have the feeling that the past few days have been such a rush, and such a mess?
So much that I feel so awkward when I finally have the time to sit down at the dining table and have lunch or dinner *at home*. I think yesterday was one of the rare full days I had spent at home these hols... one which I spent without stepping out of the door. I know it was a Saturday, and at other times I'd be complaining about having my Saturday wasted, but this time I really needed the rest and the sleep. Still haven't had dinner with my family in ages. Dad's been away, then both parents have been away, then Dad's been away again, then I've been crawling out... well tonight we're gonna have shabu-shabu at home... our first dinner at a proper dining table in the new house. :)
On Friday... o happy day. I've finally acquired a new preciouss... a Fujitsu S2020, after months and months of impatient waiting. I was deciding between that and a S6220... but with the 700 bucks difference and Lionel's and Darren's urging I picked the 2020. Mobile AMD Athlon processor, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon IGP graphics, DVD + CD-RW, 40 GB, with a 13.3" screen and weighing just 1.75kg. Am now migrating the data from my old Dell and the main compt and my HDD... trying to reorganise and consolidate everything. Me new precious precioussss... yay!!
So much that I feel so awkward when I finally have the time to sit down at the dining table and have lunch or dinner *at home*. I think yesterday was one of the rare full days I had spent at home these hols... one which I spent without stepping out of the door. I know it was a Saturday, and at other times I'd be complaining about having my Saturday wasted, but this time I really needed the rest and the sleep. Still haven't had dinner with my family in ages. Dad's been away, then both parents have been away, then Dad's been away again, then I've been crawling out... well tonight we're gonna have shabu-shabu at home... our first dinner at a proper dining table in the new house. :)
On Friday... o happy day. I've finally acquired a new preciouss... a Fujitsu S2020, after months and months of impatient waiting. I was deciding between that and a S6220... but with the 700 bucks difference and Lionel's and Darren's urging I picked the 2020. Mobile AMD Athlon processor, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon IGP graphics, DVD + CD-RW, 40 GB, with a 13.3" screen and weighing just 1.75kg. Am now migrating the data from my old Dell and the main compt and my HDD... trying to reorganise and consolidate everything. Me new precious precioussss... yay!!
Friday, August 27, 2004
Time's a-running away
11 more days left. There's still lots i can do. Inertia is very strong... Me wanting to resist giving in to singsoc commitments... Rotting my time away giving out flyers in e unis. My days in singapore can be spent more productively. Next week... next week i shall be juggling.Edit: Correction - Perhaps not 'rotting away', but I can certainly use the time. Read... "Use". We do have adequate manpower on the publicity dates... frankly I think it's more of a 'show face' mentality for some of us.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Less than 2 weeks to go before I've to return to London again. Next week shall be my last full week here.
More intertidal trips are coming up; really hope I can go for them, 'else I'd be forced to wait for goodness knows how many more months, or years, before I can go again, that's if the places are still undestroyed.
Gotta go to Comex 2004 to get a new laptop (finally!)...
Next week's mornings are almost all fully booked with driving lessons...
Gotta reserve 1st Sept to spend some time with ZF...
Gotta get myself muddy at the Mandai mangroves...
Wanna guide at least once more at Buloh...
Wanna go for the Kent Ridge heritage walk...
Gotta be careful and set my priorities right now. I seem to be neglecting some things. And some people. :|
More intertidal trips are coming up; really hope I can go for them, 'else I'd be forced to wait for goodness knows how many more months, or years, before I can go again, that's if the places are still undestroyed.
Gotta go to Comex 2004 to get a new laptop (finally!)...
Next week's mornings are almost all fully booked with driving lessons...
Gotta reserve 1st Sept to spend some time with ZF...
Gotta get myself muddy at the Mandai mangroves...
Wanna guide at least once more at Buloh...
Wanna go for the Kent Ridge heritage walk...
Gotta be careful and set my priorities right now. I seem to be neglecting some things. And some people. :|
I know, I'm lagging in my blogging.
I've so many unpublished drafts from previous days, all fragments of sentences of what I have done.
Haven't fully recovered from Sojourn... and the SingSoc publicity effort for UK-Bound is taking its toll on me. Not that I actually do much during the publicity stunts besides trying to hand out flyers to students with that i-like-to-go-clubbing look, but it's the fact that we've been stationed at a place for hours on end, for at least 6 hours each day.
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Monday was at NUS science canteen. Was bored, and tired... so I escaped twice to the nearby Raffles Museum during the day-long tenure. I bumped into Eunice of TKGS! She's doing medicine... w00t I had been keeping an eye out for my sec sch friends... and found one... :)
Had a short rest at Darren's house with Kai and Mary, then after a little bit of drama that night we settled dinner with a few of the freshers and other seniors.
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Tuesday's location was at NTU Canteen B... bah NTU's way too far for me... all the way to Boon Lay and beyond. Met Thiha there, had lunch, and continued flyering.
This time, I ran into Serene... yep... TKGS... hehe
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Wednesday was back at NUS, this time at the Biz and Engin facs. It didn't go unrewarded... there was another familiar face in the crowds - Evelyn, also of TKGS. Found out the names of a few others who are also in NUS. In the morn I went with SEC/GVN on a recce to Kent Ridge Park, cut short by the rain. Managed to sight a Common flameback woodpecker, a Little heron and a Black-crowned night heron, and Thiha said he saw a drongo.
Am so sleepy and feeling to drained all the time... it's like I'm always only half-awake. :| Had a dose of sanity restored when we - Darren, Lionel, Jingye, Jed, Alex and Joseph - had dinner at Nooch and went to watch Alien vs Predator. It wasn't as bad as what the reviews claimed it to be... the effects were good, there were some cool action scenes, and the whole film was engaging and smooth-flowing. (Btw thanks Jed, Jingye and Darren for walking me home.)
I've so many unpublished drafts from previous days, all fragments of sentences of what I have done.
Haven't fully recovered from Sojourn... and the SingSoc publicity effort for UK-Bound is taking its toll on me. Not that I actually do much during the publicity stunts besides trying to hand out flyers to students with that i-like-to-go-clubbing look, but it's the fact that we've been stationed at a place for hours on end, for at least 6 hours each day.
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Monday was at NUS science canteen. Was bored, and tired... so I escaped twice to the nearby Raffles Museum during the day-long tenure. I bumped into Eunice of TKGS! She's doing medicine... w00t I had been keeping an eye out for my sec sch friends... and found one... :)
Had a short rest at Darren's house with Kai and Mary, then after a little bit of drama that night we settled dinner with a few of the freshers and other seniors.
-------------------------
Tuesday's location was at NTU Canteen B... bah NTU's way too far for me... all the way to Boon Lay and beyond. Met Thiha there, had lunch, and continued flyering.
This time, I ran into Serene... yep... TKGS... hehe
-------------------------
Wednesday was back at NUS, this time at the Biz and Engin facs. It didn't go unrewarded... there was another familiar face in the crowds - Evelyn, also of TKGS. Found out the names of a few others who are also in NUS. In the morn I went with SEC/GVN on a recce to Kent Ridge Park, cut short by the rain. Managed to sight a Common flameback woodpecker, a Little heron and a Black-crowned night heron, and Thiha said he saw a drongo.
Am so sleepy and feeling to drained all the time... it's like I'm always only half-awake. :| Had a dose of sanity restored when we - Darren, Lionel, Jingye, Jed, Alex and Joseph - had dinner at Nooch and went to watch Alien vs Predator. It wasn't as bad as what the reviews claimed it to be... the effects were good, there were some cool action scenes, and the whole film was engaging and smooth-flowing. (Btw thanks Jed, Jingye and Darren for walking me home.)
Monday, August 23, 2004
Sojourn 2004
ICSS' freshers' orientation camp!No doubt the freshers reminded us of ourselves... and to think that a year has passed when we last camped on Sentosa during our own orientation. Now we're the seniors (though I still don't feel like one, and much less act like one :P :P)... welcoming the batch of '85... my batch! But considering the guy to girl ratio, I'm still younger than perhaps 80% of the freshers lol.
Teehee. The role of the Chief Safety Officer is basically a slacker's job. Besides the odd cuts and abrasions which need to be treated and bandaged, and the occasional issue of Panadol, there's nothing much for a Safety O to do... and thank goodness for that. I was allowed to bum away while the rest of the organisers and OGLs were running around like madmen organising the days' activities. Doubling up as the photographer I walked from group to group while they played their round-robin games and got wet in the water.
Horror House in the first night was a real cracker. There was some heated debate prior to the event as to whether or not we should have it this year, since it's the 7th month and we were, like in previous years, going to have it in an abandoned colonial mansion on Sentosa, otherwise known as the Island of Death or Pulau Blankang Mati. The many hair-raising stories surrounding that mansion weren't enough to deter us. A few seniors would be the 'actors' in the house, and Marvin and I stood by, hidden, outside the mansion, providing some sound effects with our 'chorus' of barks and screeches. Chin and I were also on standby as the safety Os. The response was good... most freshers were impressed, some scared out of their wits, and some found it fun. A few gung-ho freshers punched the actors in their excitement, much to our horror and amusement.
On the second day for three hours, I cycled around the island with Lionel, Marvin, and Chin to cover the stations for the Amazing Race - to take pics and to act as a mobile first aiders. It was blazing hot but the ride was enjoyable. Sentosa's a nice place to cycle. :) At night... BBQ dinner... and Charl came down from KL! :)
Third morn... mainland-bound. Zzzz for the rest of the arvo, and in a half-asleep state went to Orchard MRT to meet Lionel, Charl, Darren and Alex. Had dinner at Taka's Crystal Jade (the Xiao Long Bao one)... then adjourned to Kino and Borders... and lazed about at my place.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Right now... backtrack.
Last week - UK-Bound banner-painting, Sojourn meeting, lunch with Thiha (later joined by my mom) as 'repayment' for his many trips down to my place to help with the 'manly stuff'... :P, tiring wushu training (messa finally completed a whole set!), and getting first aid kits and walkie talkies in preparation for Sojourn 2004.
Last week - UK-Bound banner-painting, Sojourn meeting, lunch with Thiha (later joined by my mom) as 'repayment' for his many trips down to my place to help with the 'manly stuff'... :P, tiring wushu training (messa finally completed a whole set!), and getting first aid kits and walkie talkies in preparation for Sojourn 2004.
Was away for the freshers' orientation camp at Sentosa, and am watching the Olympics fencing matches now so I'll blog later. :P
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Yesterday arvo Kris came into my room holding some creature with a piece of tissue. She asked, "This one, bite? Look dangerous ah." I took a look at it and a shiver - of excitement and fear - went up my spine. It was dead, but the skull-like mark on its back was still as chilling as ever. It was a Death's head hawk moth (Acherontia lachesis), and aptly named so. It's the type that's on the movie posters for The Silence of the Lambs. The Chinese believe that moths and butterflies are spirits of the dead, and when I told my mom of this moth in the house, she wasn't too happy. Being a Christian family though, we don't really pay much heed to such beliefs, but still, a part of our 'culture' lingers and disturbs our thoughts. Some animals carry a universal superstition, and a Death's head moth is thought to be a damned soul returning to a scene in its past.
 |  The "death's head" |
Monday, August 16, 2004
This is Banjo, enjoying a piece of fruit.
His current favourite words are hello, banjo, good boy, lollipop, doot (telephone sound), wei, ni hao mah, occasionally coming up with other words, and regularly clicks, whistles, hums and sings, sometimes with dancing movements! On Fri last week he mastered the trick of bending up and down, raising and flapping his wings on a visual and verbal cue. :) Am now working on training him something else...
His current favourite words are hello, banjo, good boy, lollipop, doot (telephone sound), wei, ni hao mah, occasionally coming up with other words, and regularly clicks, whistles, hums and sings, sometimes with dancing movements! On Fri last week he mastered the trick of bending up and down, raising and flapping his wings on a visual and verbal cue. :) Am now working on training him something else...
Yesterday was first time in my many years with Buloh that I've managed to join them on their annual staff/volunteer outing. Pulau Kukup and the Yong Peng Heronry were the destinations, both at the south-west of Johor. We were provided with a tourist guide who tried too hard to entertain us while on the coach (and who talked way too much about too many random things and seemed not to mind one-way conversations), a guided tour around the Pulau Kukup National Park by the park manager, a local seafood lunch, and basically an all-expenses paid trip, courtesy of NParks.
At Pulau Kukup, the second-largest mangrove island in the word, I conquered one of my fears... my fear of heights. Arriving on the island, one of the first obstacles we had to cross to get across the river was a 30m suspension bridge, about 3 storeys above ground. It was VERY narrow... and shaky. I looked straight ahead and shuffled across. Yeah! (Actually, that one was ok. It was the aery, or tower hide, which had me trembling a little.) The aery, somewhat hailed as the central structure of attraction at Kukup, is a 6-storey high tower. The wooden planks of steps were see-through ones, and when one climbs up one can see what's down below. Look to the sides a tad and one can see straight down to the ground. With the Buloh staff's encouragement and urging, I made it all the way to the top, still taking regular breathes, and came back down! Hee...
That aside, the little walk on the island was more like an information exchange session. We shared our knowledge of the Buloh mangroves and its inhabitants with the manager, and she told us about the differing fauna and flora of Kukup. Kukup's animals were all so tiny and slim... the mudskippers were smaller, fishes of the same species were much, much tinier, spiders were minute, and even the grey herons were less plump than those we were used to seeing. Not a sign of a lack of nutrition though... the area is rich and vibrant. Our conservation officers speculate that many of them might be sub-species.
For me the highlight was the sighting of an extremely well-camouflaged moth. It immediately reminded me of the famous Peppered moths, those which are so popularly used in case studies of evolutionary theories. I don't know what this one is called, though, but I shall find out. Two-tailed spiders were aplenty, as were mudskippers, fiddler crabs, and crabs of the tiniest of sizes and the brightest of colours. We saw a wasp parasiting a poor catepillar. Terns circled around us and dive-bombed fish as we enjoyed our seafood lunch on the mainland jetty.
So that was Kukup. It was another long journey up to the heronry at Yong Peng. The sight was greeted us was well worth all the travelling... for just about 100m or so from a row of shophouses and residential terraces, right off the main rod, was a patch of shrubs and grassland full of herons - the Black-crowned night heron and Purple heron. It was as urban as a heronry could get. The herons - about 30 odd of them - were oblivious to us humans with our scopes and monster lens and cameras snapping away at them from not that far away. The hour and a half that we were given was not enough... I could've spent hours and hours at the site. It was an amazing arrangement... that heronry. Later we learnt that there was a dam not far off, where the birds did their fishing, but we still wondered what drew them to that particular patch of green and not some other area. Wild, untouched lands were all around, and yet they chose to live and nest at a location so close to human activity.
We were all reluctant to leave; we still had to journey home, but not without first stopping by at some shopping centre and grab some local munchies!
At the end of the day I had a little conversation with fellow volunteer Pui San, and in these words he summed up what we were thinking: "The Buloh volunteers and staff... are a tightly-knit community. There's a strong family spirit... a strong bond between the volunteers, and that's very good."
Pics from last Sat at Sungei Buloh: Birds | Insects (and a pair of copulating horseshoe crabs)
Pics from the outing: Pulau Kukup
At Pulau Kukup, the second-largest mangrove island in the word, I conquered one of my fears... my fear of heights. Arriving on the island, one of the first obstacles we had to cross to get across the river was a 30m suspension bridge, about 3 storeys above ground. It was VERY narrow... and shaky. I looked straight ahead and shuffled across. Yeah! (Actually, that one was ok. It was the aery, or tower hide, which had me trembling a little.) The aery, somewhat hailed as the central structure of attraction at Kukup, is a 6-storey high tower. The wooden planks of steps were see-through ones, and when one climbs up one can see what's down below. Look to the sides a tad and one can see straight down to the ground. With the Buloh staff's encouragement and urging, I made it all the way to the top, still taking regular breathes, and came back down! Hee...
That aside, the little walk on the island was more like an information exchange session. We shared our knowledge of the Buloh mangroves and its inhabitants with the manager, and she told us about the differing fauna and flora of Kukup. Kukup's animals were all so tiny and slim... the mudskippers were smaller, fishes of the same species were much, much tinier, spiders were minute, and even the grey herons were less plump than those we were used to seeing. Not a sign of a lack of nutrition though... the area is rich and vibrant. Our conservation officers speculate that many of them might be sub-species.
For me the highlight was the sighting of an extremely well-camouflaged moth. It immediately reminded me of the famous Peppered moths, those which are so popularly used in case studies of evolutionary theories. I don't know what this one is called, though, but I shall find out. Two-tailed spiders were aplenty, as were mudskippers, fiddler crabs, and crabs of the tiniest of sizes and the brightest of colours. We saw a wasp parasiting a poor catepillar. Terns circled around us and dive-bombed fish as we enjoyed our seafood lunch on the mainland jetty.
So that was Kukup. It was another long journey up to the heronry at Yong Peng. The sight was greeted us was well worth all the travelling... for just about 100m or so from a row of shophouses and residential terraces, right off the main rod, was a patch of shrubs and grassland full of herons - the Black-crowned night heron and Purple heron. It was as urban as a heronry could get. The herons - about 30 odd of them - were oblivious to us humans with our scopes and monster lens and cameras snapping away at them from not that far away. The hour and a half that we were given was not enough... I could've spent hours and hours at the site. It was an amazing arrangement... that heronry. Later we learnt that there was a dam not far off, where the birds did their fishing, but we still wondered what drew them to that particular patch of green and not some other area. Wild, untouched lands were all around, and yet they chose to live and nest at a location so close to human activity.
We were all reluctant to leave; we still had to journey home, but not without first stopping by at some shopping centre and grab some local munchies!
At the end of the day I had a little conversation with fellow volunteer Pui San, and in these words he summed up what we were thinking: "The Buloh volunteers and staff... are a tightly-knit community. There's a strong family spirit... a strong bond between the volunteers, and that's very good."
Pics from last Sat at Sungei Buloh: Birds | Insects (and a pair of copulating horseshoe crabs)
Pics from the outing: Pulau Kukup
 Mangrove shoreline of Kukup |  Moth on bark |
 |  Purple heron |
Friday, August 13, 2004
Adding on to the week before - Tues - went to watch Woman in Black ("direct from London"... rright... what irony... that we're catching it here in S'pore). Cool! A two-person play, a witty and entertaining script that gets the whole story moving, sound and lighting effects that convey the suspense and thrill of the moment. Vivian and Alex couldn't be persuaded to join us, so it was just Jingye, Jed and Junsheng.
The past week = messy
Thursday - spent the day going to and fro the two places (the old and the new homes), moving whatever we could with us. Thiha dropped by twice on Thurs to help with assembling the IKEA pieces - hammering and fixing shelves, 'doing the manly tasks'. Chuck in a SingSoc meeting that night.
Friday - ZF came to help with whatever she could. :) That morn we took Dofu to the vet. She had been coughing and her right ear hurt... so we thought something was up. Sure enough, she was running a fever, and had a cold and cough, and that kinda led along to a fungal infection. Bah. She must've had too much fruits last week during the BBQ... blame it on Jed and Alex! At night was SingSoc's pre-departure session for this year's freshers, so I had to be off in the evening for that event. This year... we have 2 bio juniors, both girls, both PSC-MOE scholars. Having only had Macca's chicken nuggets and McWings for the whole day, my stomach was growing throughout the session... it only ended at 10+pm and I devoured a whole honey-glazed chicken from Cold Storage upon reaching home.
Saturday - tried setting up the TV (normal and cable) in the morn since Jane was admanant that she does not miss the weekly screening Pokemon. I was terribly late... for duty at Sungei Buloh. The 'customers' were my alma mater - TKGS. The Guides were paying Sungei Buloh a visit, and Min Yu, my batchmate and former patrolmate, as a Young Adult Leader (something like a Cadet Lieutenant) had organised it so that I would be able to bring them around that day. But I was 2 hours late... Thiha had already brought them around the boardwalk and to route 1, so I accompanied them back to the visitor centre from platform 1. I met my former Chinese teacher who's one of the Guiders, and also one of my "ma'am's" who tried but couldn't quite remember who I was. :P Vivian and her bf came down too, and for the rest of the day I brought them around. Still trying hard to pull the rest of the gang along to Buloh...
Sunday - hmm... slept in. Unpacked more boxes, went out with my family... came back and did more unpacking and tidying.
Still no internet, no cable, no tv. I didn't mind, not really. But I was barely surviving. Playing Solitaire and Freecell when I was bored and didn't feel like packing.
The thing that gets me is how incapable I am rendered when I do not have internet access. Unable to fulfil my responsibilities, delegating tasks onto others, unable to perform. I hate that feeling. I can't exactly tell that conservationist from India or Indonesia to "wait, hold on, I'm moving to a new house and won't have internet for a while... can you hold off the petition or fax that letter a bit later?" or stuff like that.
Monday - National Day. Sigh. Didn't manage to get tickets for this year's parade. Jane really wanted to watch it... she hasn't done so before, and this is the last time it'll be held at the national stadium. That day we welcomed Poncho, or Banjo (as Jane prefers it), the newest addition to the family. He's an African Grey Parrot, supposedly the best talker among all birds, with the intellectual capacity of a 5-year-old child and the emotional equivalent of a 2-year-old. My godbro's family gave him (we *assume it's a him... you can't tell by its looks) to us... saying that he talks too much. Hmm... he's been pretty quiet the first day.
Tuesday - bludged around the whole day, spent some time with Banjo (Poncho), settled SingSoc stuff. Had a crowd of a meeting at night... at my place... since it was in a 'central' location... both ExCo and Sojourn comms. ~20 people... waa and it'll not be the last time.
Wednesday - GVN's Kent Ridge walk was cancelled... forgot what else I did that arvo. At night we almost watched King Arthur but caught The Village in the end. Lionel, Jed, and Jingye, too, insisted that I get a taste of shopping centres in the North, so the Jedi drove past the cinemas on Orchard to Bishan's Junction 8! lol... rright... extra sound effects... hammering and drilling sounds from below during the movie... which was itself a rather hrm, weird, movie with a twist. Not as chilling as I had thought it might be. (Lionel: "Ge worse!" when it ended, and Jingye the Thinker: "Not bad, not bad. Quite original.")
Nothing much on Thursday... wushu session... with the staff and the works... training and taming Banjo... and SingSoc meeting at night.
Friday? Well now...
The past week = messy
Thursday - spent the day going to and fro the two places (the old and the new homes), moving whatever we could with us. Thiha dropped by twice on Thurs to help with assembling the IKEA pieces - hammering and fixing shelves, 'doing the manly tasks'. Chuck in a SingSoc meeting that night.
Friday - ZF came to help with whatever she could. :) That morn we took Dofu to the vet. She had been coughing and her right ear hurt... so we thought something was up. Sure enough, she was running a fever, and had a cold and cough, and that kinda led along to a fungal infection. Bah. She must've had too much fruits last week during the BBQ... blame it on Jed and Alex! At night was SingSoc's pre-departure session for this year's freshers, so I had to be off in the evening for that event. This year... we have 2 bio juniors, both girls, both PSC-MOE scholars. Having only had Macca's chicken nuggets and McWings for the whole day, my stomach was growing throughout the session... it only ended at 10+pm and I devoured a whole honey-glazed chicken from Cold Storage upon reaching home.
Saturday - tried setting up the TV (normal and cable) in the morn since Jane was admanant that she does not miss the weekly screening Pokemon. I was terribly late... for duty at Sungei Buloh. The 'customers' were my alma mater - TKGS. The Guides were paying Sungei Buloh a visit, and Min Yu, my batchmate and former patrolmate, as a Young Adult Leader (something like a Cadet Lieutenant) had organised it so that I would be able to bring them around that day. But I was 2 hours late... Thiha had already brought them around the boardwalk and to route 1, so I accompanied them back to the visitor centre from platform 1. I met my former Chinese teacher who's one of the Guiders, and also one of my "ma'am's" who tried but couldn't quite remember who I was. :P Vivian and her bf came down too, and for the rest of the day I brought them around. Still trying hard to pull the rest of the gang along to Buloh...
Sunday - hmm... slept in. Unpacked more boxes, went out with my family... came back and did more unpacking and tidying.
Still no internet, no cable, no tv. I didn't mind, not really. But I was barely surviving. Playing Solitaire and Freecell when I was bored and didn't feel like packing.
The thing that gets me is how incapable I am rendered when I do not have internet access. Unable to fulfil my responsibilities, delegating tasks onto others, unable to perform. I hate that feeling. I can't exactly tell that conservationist from India or Indonesia to "wait, hold on, I'm moving to a new house and won't have internet for a while... can you hold off the petition or fax that letter a bit later?" or stuff like that.
Monday - National Day. Sigh. Didn't manage to get tickets for this year's parade. Jane really wanted to watch it... she hasn't done so before, and this is the last time it'll be held at the national stadium. That day we welcomed Poncho, or Banjo (as Jane prefers it), the newest addition to the family. He's an African Grey Parrot, supposedly the best talker among all birds, with the intellectual capacity of a 5-year-old child and the emotional equivalent of a 2-year-old. My godbro's family gave him (we *assume it's a him... you can't tell by its looks) to us... saying that he talks too much. Hmm... he's been pretty quiet the first day.
Tuesday - bludged around the whole day, spent some time with Banjo (Poncho), settled SingSoc stuff. Had a crowd of a meeting at night... at my place... since it was in a 'central' location... both ExCo and Sojourn comms. ~20 people... waa and it'll not be the last time.
Wednesday - GVN's Kent Ridge walk was cancelled... forgot what else I did that arvo. At night we almost watched King Arthur but caught The Village in the end. Lionel, Jed, and Jingye, too, insisted that I get a taste of shopping centres in the North, so the Jedi drove past the cinemas on Orchard to Bishan's Junction 8! lol... rright... extra sound effects... hammering and drilling sounds from below during the movie... which was itself a rather hrm, weird, movie with a twist. Not as chilling as I had thought it might be. (Lionel: "Ge worse!" when it ended, and Jingye the Thinker: "Not bad, not bad. Quite original.")
Nothing much on Thursday... wushu session... with the staff and the works... training and taming Banjo... and SingSoc meeting at night.
Friday? Well now...
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Testing
Am emailing my blog from my phone...Randomness. Just felt like trying it. Call it a displacement activity if you so wish. :P
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
This morning's pre-sunrise trip to Pulau Sekudu was rewarded with my first wild sighting of a Mantis shrimp, plus lots of... erm, copulating activity going on in the lagoons and in the little water puddles. O_O Snails, crabs, and even sea cucumbers were going about doing what they were created to do. Might be the breeding season for the intertidal inhabitants, one might say. Ria and the wildfilms crew were there documenting away.
Budding fellow Imperial biologist Xiao came along, and she was quite amazed at what she saw. Even a hermit crab or a carpet anemone was enough to send her wow!-ing way. :) Didn't see the bigger animals - the toadfish, seahorses, 'sotongs' and octopuses - though, most likely 'cos they've all went back into hiding after the break of dawn...
Budding fellow Imperial biologist Xiao came along, and she was quite amazed at what she saw. Even a hermit crab or a carpet anemone was enough to send her wow!-ing way. :) Didn't see the bigger animals - the toadfish, seahorses, 'sotongs' and octopuses - though, most likely 'cos they've all went back into hiding after the break of dawn...
 Sea cucumbers 'doing their thing' |  Mantis shrimp |
 |  Sunrise from Sekudu |
A few mornings ago, I woke up to find that the shelves and cupboards in the family area and the living area were all gone. Now, my whole place has become no-man's land, and in my room I am surrounded by boxes and cartons. We're moving into the new place this week.
Yesterday, I managed to pay a visit to RMBR and to chat up some things with Siva. My current task is now to spice up some slides to be used in the prep talks for the upcoming International Coastal Cleanup... the project on the exotic species database is also still going on. I've just realised that I haven't been to Kent Ridge Park (aka Pasir Panjang) in recent years; GVN's gonna go down on next Wed so I might hop along.
Yesterday, I managed to pay a visit to RMBR and to chat up some things with Siva. My current task is now to spice up some slides to be used in the prep talks for the upcoming International Coastal Cleanup... the project on the exotic species database is also still going on. I've just realised that I haven't been to Kent Ridge Park (aka Pasir Panjang) in recent years; GVN's gonna go down on next Wed so I might hop along.
Monday, August 02, 2004
Hee... since Viv's working at Raffles Place, and I was 'on my way' from Orchard to Tanjong Pagar, we met up for lunch. "wHoOhOo!" We went to get her paycheck. :P
Sigh. My timetable doesn't allow me to commit. Nah, or maybe it's more like I don't want to commit these hols and sign up for some contract that'll eat away the opportunities to do what I want to do... and what I need to do, though sometimes those two do overlap. I've promised my mom that I'll work when my next long hols come. Ehh... brings back that feeling of having to drag myself all the way from my bed to the workplace every single day while thinking up every appropriate conceivable reason why I *cannot* (don't want to) do that...
Whereas when I volunteer, there's a whole different outlook. Went down to the SEC office again today, just to drop by and say hi and do whatever I could squeeze into the afternoon. This time it was calling up companies regarding the ISO 14001 standard and getting their contact details... bleh some people can sound so darn fierce and unfriendly and some sound so timid... like little children. And dunno what else I've gotten myself into. School talks for Buloh ain't enough... now I've given a nod to giving school talks for SEC and NEA. On the topic of waste management! Well... but if they need people... hmm... I guess...
Sigh. My timetable doesn't allow me to commit. Nah, or maybe it's more like I don't want to commit these hols and sign up for some contract that'll eat away the opportunities to do what I want to do... and what I need to do, though sometimes those two do overlap. I've promised my mom that I'll work when my next long hols come. Ehh... brings back that feeling of having to drag myself all the way from my bed to the workplace every single day while thinking up every appropriate conceivable reason why I *cannot* (don't want to) do that...
Whereas when I volunteer, there's a whole different outlook. Went down to the SEC office again today, just to drop by and say hi and do whatever I could squeeze into the afternoon. This time it was calling up companies regarding the ISO 14001 standard and getting their contact details... bleh some people can sound so darn fierce and unfriendly and some sound so timid... like little children. And dunno what else I've gotten myself into. School talks for Buloh ain't enough... now I've given a nod to giving school talks for SEC and NEA. On the topic of waste management! Well... but if they need people... hmm... I guess...
