Its so hard....

Its so hard to concentrate. So many things on my mind. The death of one of my uncle left me dumbfounded. The fact that I'm totally relying on my wife's source of income is worrying, the fact that I've yet to complete or even starts on my TMAs is a great cause of concern. Felt like a cow going into the slaughter house.
Anyway, read in the news today, that an Ang Moh person was convicted and thrown in jail for throwing his Thai wife out the window. They were at a fourth floor apartment when that happened. I thought, oh my, this is like CSI. But its Singapore, no hollywood style excitement here!
Apparently his mom is sick and he was upset that his Thai wife was not giving the attention that he thinks he needed. Hah hah. So he waited for her to fall asleep, went into the room and he flung her out of the window! How cool is that?
Whats even cooler is that she survived, albeit bleeding from the head, spent some time in our very world class hospital and wanted him to be released from Prison. Hey this is no Hollywood. You can't just go into the police station and tell those boys in blue, "thanks for all your help but I think you could let him out now." Awesome. But whats not cool is when its stated that he is a good provider, etc etc. I mean, so what if he is a good provider. He flung you out of the window! Imagine if like me, she stayed in an apartment 16th floor up!
Anyway, Adam now has a blog. Its in www.lead.com.sg so I don't think it accessible to the public. He is writing alot now. I'll see if I can get him to post in blogger.com

Its so hard...

Doughnut Recipe

2 eggs
2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of sugar
2 cups of flour
3 teaspoon of butter
1 teaspoon of baking soda
Milk

1. Cream sugar and butter together, add beaten eggs.
2. Mix and sift dry ingredients.
3. Add dry ingredients to mixture. Add milk. Mixture should be very soft.
4. Form into a ball and roll to one-half inch thickness.
5. Cut and fry in hot oil.

Hope that helps!

Kinderchef

While I was contemplating as to how I could attempt my TMAs, Adam went to Kinderchef today. There was a celebrity present, Chef Bob. He cooked pizza using a slice of french loaf as a base. He made a cookie too. He enjoyed the session. Took some pictures.



The picture above shows the teacher that accompanied Adam. Did not catch her name though.



That's chef Bob.

Doughnuts

Adam came back from Kinderchef all excited of what he did in Kinderchef. Kinderchef is a cooking enrichment class conducted by Iman. Anyway, he was telling me so much of the doughnuts that I can't wait to try them out at home. We went over the cheklist and we have all of the ingredients but one. Baking soda! What the heck is baking soda? Since Su is not at home, I'll guess I have to leave it to her then. Heh heh...
By that time, the excitement has died down and he is now xboxing...
Will be going to tutorial later. Oh my, it had been such a cold day, my joints are aching.
Anyway, for those who are interested in strawberries, the Korean strawberries sold in NTUC nowadays are very sweet. If not for the fact that strawberries may trigger another gout attack, I had only a couple. I bought them for my dearest wife anyways.

Adam's shoes

It has been three months since Adam went to Greendale Primary. Since then, he has made new friends and and experience a whole new level of teacher talk. Teacher talk? The way teacher talks to the kids, the very unnatural way of talking. I mean we, human beings do not talk like that when we talk to other human beings right? Think of teacher talk as an abberation of mother talk.
Anyway, Adam has got into a pretty good routine I must say. Only last week, he took out his assessment books and finished his homework, all without being told. I planned it such that 3.00pm will be his work time. He can do anything he wants from the time he got back from school until work time.
A funny thing happened the other day, well him, not me. He walked straight into a lampost! He was coming back from school and he was distracted looking at a friend of his that he smack straight into the lampost. It was funny, but both me, wifey and grandparents were not surprised. I mean, when he was in Iman, he walked straight into a bush!
His weeknights and weekevenings are quite eventfull.
He'll have swimming on Tuesdays, ngaji on Wednesdays, library on thursdays with his mum and piano on fridays. Not to mention Madrasah on Saturday morning. He seems to be coping well. Will be updating again.

This is so stressed.

Only two more hours till my TMA submission deadline. And I'm blogging and facebooking! Crazy!

99000

I read in an article that it is expected to have 99000 people who will lost their job. Its getting very real. At first, one would think that it'll not affect us, Singaporeans I mean. But if the numbers do come true, imagine how it must feel like for those involved. Some may be lucky to have saving to tide them over, but for how long? What will happen then? And imagine the stress people are feeling now, thinking that they may lose their livlihood.
I have friends, who are zipping around, travelling to overseas destinations, talking about buying new cars and all, all painting a rosy picture to their aquitances. But it is not that rosy. The person sitting next to you on the bus, is probably thiniking as to how to feed his or her children in the coming weeks! Its that bad.
I have friends who resigned from jobs, because they don't like the environment. Who does? If you like your environment, then its not work. But in this times, there are mouth to feed and bills to pay.
I'm sitting here, on my bed, listening to the sound of tyres splashing on the wet road. I wonder, will it affect me? And if it does, am I fully ready?
I guess the answer will be yes, it has already affected me, and no I can never be ready. People close to me have their lives changed because of this recession. A relative had to spend time away from her son just so she could work and bring $1.5k back home. Another close friend, has fallen sick thinking as to where is he going to get the money to pay for his house instalments.
Many of my colleagues or ex colleagues seems to be living in this bubble, sterile inside, translucent to see through. They see what they want to see. They see misbehavior, they see dirty unwashed uniforms, they see borrowing and lending of money to buy food for luch. Its what they don't see that makes me wonder. I'm not one to judge, but I want to know, what is it that makes them unable to see, or empathise. Perhaps, its their lot. Perhaps they can't do anything about it. Perhaps they don't bother. I don't want to judge. I want to know.
I want to know what will happen to my neighbour who has two kids and husband only earning 1k per month. I want to what what will happen to another neighbour who owes a bank 1.4k a month on car instalments. Sheesh!
All I'm saying, it time one be prepared. Spend some time in putting some away. It might just come in handy.

TMAs

Been sometime since I last log in. Been busy finishing my TMAs and now I've got three more to hand in a couple of weeks. As to what I've been up to, well, its what I've not been up thats interesting. My leg was hurting real bad last week that I've to used a wheelchair. I felt so useless; I cried myself to sleep. Took me three days to be able to stand up without support. As a result, I missed my tutorials and a lecture. It won't be so bad except the TMAs could do a lot of help.

Because of a lack of driving, my Jet FC went down. So went to JB once a week for the past two weeks instead of my normal twice a week routine. Just went in last Wenesday in the afternoon. Left the house at 11am and reach back home by 1,40pm. Managed to catch Adam as he was walking home. Heh heh. Spent some RM$100 on groceries too!

Now as I sat here watching and Adam practising his piano, I can smell the pizza baking in the oven. I made a half and half. What I mean is, I used Ranch dressing as a base on half of the pizza and a traditional tomato, garlic and olive base on the other half. Just a few minutes more for me to see if it'll taste nice.

Actually, me and the whole family seems to be doing fine. Athough I've yet to be broke, there are some belt tightening that needs to be done. Its o.k, I'm living well with $150 dollars in my bank account. Su is doing well with $800 and Adam hmm, lets say he has a long way to go in understanding the concept of savings.

Still hoping for the GST credits to come in and Su's pb to come in. It'll be really useful I bet. Anyway, my job is to study and I better do it well. Else, why would I need to tighten up my belt for. I need to make this worth it. Its not a nice feeling not to be able to buy new stuff, especially Cds, DVDs and er...oh yeah, car stuf. But hey, if a friend of mine can do it, I's sure I can.

stopped...

This is so funny, that I'd stuff it all the way in the "why are there stupid things happening to me" category.

Today, as usual I had my Unisim lecture on Science (not really on the science subject but I'll talk about it in a bit). As usual, I went to JB to top up my petrol. As usual, I had easiest of time going in and going out. But, it was the going back part which made me wanted to cry out.

I was stopped, at the police check point, just after I had my car inspected my customs in the Singapore side of the causeway. This young officer, told me to wind down the window and asked for my passport. No sweat right, I mean he is doing his job. So he took my passport and began looking at the pages. From my rear view mirror, I can see another officer, looking through the windows and so on and so forth. But this guy, the passport holding officer started to make small talk. He looked through it and then asked, "Where are you going?" I mean hey, where does he think I'm going. "Home." I replied. Appearing to be shocked, he asked me if have a house in Singapore. I mean, I so wanted to say, "No, actually I'm a Filipina. I don't leave here, I got lost on the way to Cambodia!" What the f?
He continue looking at my passport and noted that I went in once a week. Seriously, if he had paid attention in math class, he would have known I went in twice a week.
An awkward silence then developed. The other officer was still checking my car, (I especially like the rims) and the guy was still flipping through my passport. I know he was trying to stall for time but hey, he could just put the passport down and waited. Suddenly, I heard an all clear and he awkwardly gave me back my passport.

I felt stupid being stupidly asked those questions by stupid people who does not know what stupid is. Just wasting my time.

Anyway, today's lecture has something to do with a Darwin and a Wallace. They focus on why Darwin is highly acknowledge while Wallace is not. It also boils down to the boundaries set by science by the scientists themselves. For example, as in it is difficult to actually have a definition as to what is religion, what actually is Science. If science belives in the material world, then what about the study of paranormal. If that is included, would that not be in the realm of being religious? Definition is important and in this case, we could be having scientist studying religion, but then again, what is religion? Is islam a religion? Why is it so? Is Buddhism a religion? Is Islam like Buddhism? What are the similar characteritics of Buddhism and Islam, Would football hooliganism have the same characteristics? What about scientology? Is that religion?

We studied Darwin's inabiliity to publish what he found out during his trip on HMS Beagle. We studied as to why Wallace, was not accepted as a professional scientist but then maybe he was ahead of his time.

Its half past midnight. Let me re read this post again tomorrow and post more stuff to make this post clearer.

Routine

I changed my routine today, abit, not much. After I've send my wife to work, I went to East Coast Park. Thought of giving my 20mm a good workout. But the day was gloomy and the light was flat. So I ended up walking briskly to the jetty and back. Not a bad workout for myself if I do say so myself. At least I didn't find myself limping.
Looking at the flatness of the light, I was quite excited as I made my way to the jetty. Only to find that it's closed for renovation. Nparks are replacing the railings, I think. The sign states that it should be ready in feb 09, but duh, its feb 09 now!. As I walked back towards the car, I realised that the park has changed significantly. There were constructions going on nearer to the jetty. I hope it'll do the park good... like more green space rather than grey.
Pictures below were taken on the way back.



I want to go to Tiong Bahru and do some street shooting. Anybody interested in joining me?

seasonal

There must be a reason!
My dad was readmitted to CGH, last Sunday (discharged yesterday). While he was there, my cousin was admitted for stroke (she is still there) and yesterday night, got a call saying that another cousin had passed away. Heard he had a fall in the bathroom. Sigh. Very depressing.
I guess, I should be grateful that my dad is still around and both he and my mum are in very good spirits. My mom, was diagnosed with nose cancer a few months back by the way. And I'm worried for not being able to buy a new phone!

Journal

My new tutor, Chitra, suggested to us to start journal writing. She said it could provide the spark needed to complete the assignments. I say, Yeah! We should all do it. Its a great stress reliever.
Anyway, just came back from M5 tutorial class by Manulife. Met some interesting characters there. It sure made the class more meaningful.
Anyway Citra is my Az 1031 tutor. The topic was about religeon or more importantly the study of religeon. Don't know if it made any sense to you guys but the study of religeon differs from religeon study. One is a formal undertaking to learn more about the why of religeon while the other would be a forma or informal way to know more about a particular religeon.
The topic begins by understanding the difficulty in defining religeon. As to why one needs to define religeon would be the fact that defining it would make it easier for one to study it. Definitions are clear precise but flexible enough to preclude others which are not religeon. But then, how does one define religeon. Ninian Smart model of dimensional characteristics could also include fervent soccer fever as being a religeon.
Anyway, it 11.45 pm now and I'm suppose to wake up early tomorrow.
Thus I am tired.The picture below was taken when I went to Batam.

Car-ed

No go, that's what they said. I exceeded the mileage by 500km and they said they won't be honouring the waranty. Screw them. I'll do my own service.
Damn, long day tomorrow.

Car

I think I'm partly at fault. My car is nearing its end of the its warranty period. It had hit 100000km and so I decided to send it to the agent for serviced. Damn! Agent just called and told me to leave the car overnight. He said that the mechanics are still checking out the complaints I made regarding the car. So now, I'm car less until tomorrow afternoon; I hope.
So I can't fetch Su and and I will be travelling by train and bus to Unism tomorrow. Sigh. I hope I can the car sooner than "3 or 4 pm".
As to what are those faults, all minor but I had to say it...
1. A "wOng" sound when I turn right.
2. The signal stick won't reset itself when I turn right.
3. The car is getting bumpy at the back.

Also sent the car there to get its oil change.
Wish me luck.

First!

There were many first this past few days. Hmm, where do I start?
Well of course, the most dramatic one was when I received a call at 5.00am in the morning from sister, saying that my dad was in the hospital. That was a first for me; receiving such a call. To make matters worse, my mom was already admitted in NUH two days before and my dad was warded in TTSH. After that call, my head felt like it was going to explode. Went to visit my dad after sending my wife to school.
Another first was related to Adam. Monday was Adam's first day buying food for himself by himself during recess. Turned out he ate the sandwich that Risa prepared for him and used the time saved from queuing to play games with his friends. Not a bad idea.
Monday too was the first lecture of my second module in Unism. This module is on the study of religeon. Quite baffling. The lecture was carried out by this English guy who hardly has a British accent. Looks eccentric if you asked me, the girls thought he looked quite handsome.
Oh, I went to JB after class. That was a first after a long time. The new CIQ is very winding. I ended up at the red lane instead. I got lost for a bit and with the help of somebody on a Singapore registerd motorcycle, I'd managed to find my way back home. Went again on Thursday morning.
First time going to a hotel in Batam. Will be there during CNY. I hope everything will be alright. Quite excited actually.

Books

Went to Unisim to collect my books today. Not as dramatic as the first time when I did that. This time, I collected two boxes though instead of one as I'm taking two modules. Went to Unisim with Adam and Su and Risa. Had dinner there too.
Adam came back from school telling me that he spent all of his $2 on a mechanical pencil and a notebook. Rather than raising my voice, I asked him as to what could he if he wanted to buy a drink. After a few moments of silence, we then agreed that he could buy anything that he wanted but he is to make sure that he'll have enough for food and drinks.
But he was so proud! Yes he was proud being able to buy things with his own money. When we went to Unisim for dinner, he was very active in buying his own food. On one hand, we could see that his confidence has grown but on the other hand, well, I think he is spending too much.

Packed

My mornings nowadays are very free. That is from the time I'm back from sending Su and till Adam comes back. After that its non stop fatherly duties.
In the meantime, I've been teaching Risa a thing or two about internet and email.
When Adam comes back, he'll usually have lunch after that a hotchpot of activities. Of course, the priority will be completing his homework. After which, it'll be revision of Maths and English. He seems to be able to rest from 5.00pm onwards. But then again, he'll have piano from 6.30pm, or he will be out of the house for his ngaji from 5.30pm. So I guess, its really true, he is a busy boy. I've signed him up for swimming and that'll keep him occupied for Tuesday afternoon. Monday and Wednesday, he is off to Woodlands for ngaji. Thursday is his P.L.A.Y day and he will be in school until 3.30pm. Piano lessons are on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings are for madrasah lessons. Not that I'm pressurising him but I think it's important that he'll be kept occupied with a variety of activities. I also think that it is important for him to have a routine.

Ex

Washed the car today.
Did 40 push up and 4 sit up.
Went out for dinner...Sigh.

Ex

Did some exercises today, so from today, I'm going to log in what I did.
50 sit ups
20 push ups

Young coconut for breakfast.
Normal meals for lunch and dinner.

My aim, is to be able to fit into a swimming trunk by mid year.

HA HA HA