追梦（明星梦？）

昨天我们全家人去看了五月天的《追梦》3DNA电影演唱会。今天，回家的路途中出现了这样的一段对话。

（在车里，她要争听原声带的《知足》，我要听《倔强》，两人相持不下的时候...）

媛媛：爸爸！我长大要做五月天！
爸爸：har?不可以啊！不可以去“做”五月天的。
媛媛：（不服气）为什么！
爸爸：因为就好像你不可以做ultraman 一样lor。
媛媛：Ultraman是假的嘛！五月天是真的。
爸爸：呃，对咯！就好像你是黄靖媛，你不可以做Denise还是Teryl（媛媛的同学）的咯。
媛媛：（沉吟片刻）爸爸！！那你带我去看真的五月天！
爸爸：可是五月天的票很贵的叻！
媛媛：我要看真的五月天！我要看真的五月天！
爸爸：这样啊...不然爸爸带你看Mickey Mouse Musical好不好？
媛媛：好！！！我要看Mickey Mouse Musical!...可是五月天叻？
爸爸：Mickey Mouse Musical的票也很贵叻！看了Mickey Mouse就不可以看五月天了。
媛媛：（失望）Har~~~~~~~~?!?!?!?
爸爸：不然我给你选啦。你要看Mickey Mouse还是五月天？只可以选一个。
媛媛：呃...嗯...啊...我要看五月天。
爸爸：好，那就五月天咯！
媛媛：耶！！！！！！爸爸爸爸！《知足》！！（五音不全）怎么去拥有一道彩虹、怎么去拥抱一夏天的风、天上的星星笑地上的人、叽里咕噜叽里咕噜足够...

A GREAT Day!

It has been a long while that we packed the whole day full of activities! The morning began Clement bringing Jaimie to Jurong Central Park to play her scooter which she got yesterday while I did my grocery shopping in Jurong Point. Then, we met at the McDonald's for a sumptuous breakfast.

After that, we went home. Clement and Jaimie went for a dip in the swimming pool while I spent the hour doing housework. We were all looking forward to the afternoon program -- Mayday 3DNA Movie/ Concert at GV Marina! Clement and I watched it last Friday. We loved the movie/ concert so much that we decided to watch it again and this time, we brought Jaimie along.

Jaimie was super happy to go to the cinema! She might be small but she is a big fan of Mayday, just like her mommy!! Errr.. Jaimie, we need to take another shot. Please point somewhere else...

Yeah!

The audience was taking photos in the cinema before the show began, just like what we usually do before the concert starts. Some people even brought in the trademark blue lightstick into the cinema! Wow!

Jaimie really rocked with the songs! She was singing ALOUD (and I really meant LOUD) and waving her hands in the air while kicking her feet. After the movie, she made 2 comments. (1) the music was too loud (2) please bring her to a real Mayday concert. Dear, it is going to be even LOUDER in a concert! How? And I am not going to pay $168 for your ticket and get you ear plugs.

Dinner at Just Acia. The little girl ordered cheese rice with fried ebi. She ate half the portion and showed me her big and round stomach to convince me that she was very, very full. Then, she ate some ice cream. Hmmm...

Her drawing has improved lately. She added many details to her pictures.

This was Mr Bump (from Little Men) falling off the ladder while trying to repair the chimney. The drawing was dedicated to her daddy.




Mommy gets a princess picture. On the left is Rapanzel and her tower. On the right is Cinderella with her glass slippers... if you can tell it's a glass slipper.

All I can say, is that today is a GREAT DAY!

Waka Waka!

Jaimie rehearsing at home. I think this is for her kindergarten graduation concert. I am not very sure! She does this African inspired dance often at home. She is also dancing to a Chinese opera song. Hmmmm... my little star going international?

1st Half Marathon and a Marathon Week

This September is a memorable one. I did my first half marathon and in one week, I did a marathon's distance worth of exercising!

4 September 2011 - SAFRA Bay Run/ Army Half Marathon, 21km.
With encouragement and challenges from my running buddy Wolfie, I completed my 21km in about 2hr 30mins.

I was in quite good form that day and ran the entire 21km. So proud of myself! My average speed was 8.4km/h.


7 Sept 2011 - MacRitchie Resevoir, 10.5km

From the fun photos you know that we didn't run. We walked (exercised our legs) and talked (exercised our mouth) and laughed (exercised our facial muscles) for 10.5km. We took about 2hr 20min.


8th Sept, 10th Sept 2011 - 2x5km on treadmill

I ran at 10.1km/h and 10.2km/h for 5km on the 2 days respectively.

In total, I did a marathon distance in a week! :))

Now, my resolution for 2012 is to do a full marathon in 6hrs!

I hope I will be able to do that!

M&M

This is done by the great artist Saulne. This is an old piece of work he did some years back.

He noticed that M&M is my energy booster, caffaine, morphine, anti-depressant, PMS food etc. He warned me that if I eat too much of it, I will end up looking like one.

Woooo.... scary!

But I am not about to give up my solution to all my troubles.

Bento #181

Same old boring combination. Jaimie prefers to eat familar food. The meatballs in the bento made her very happy.

Food For Thoughts

The teacher mommies team has not met for a long long time. Wolfgirl and I happened to be available on this Friday evening for dinner. We tried our luck to call Joyce and Viv to join us and being such great friends we are, the 2 girls made changes to their schedule just to have an evening out together!

It is a tradition to have a dress up theme whenever we meet. Since next Saturday is the Presidential Election, we decided to use that as a theme!

Joyce coming as "The First Lady".

Wolfgirl is "Cheng Hoo Lang" (Government people). Always serve and greet with a smile although growling inside. Er, yes, she was very hungry because she missed lunch.

Viv is "The People's President". She came in flip flops.

I put on my glasses. Isn't that very obvious?!
We had very intellectual discussion over a very, very big spread. We polished off everything! We didn't "liow bee" (waste rice) and we don't jiak liow bee. The phrase "food for thoughts" is so true. We need to eat so that we can think. And so we thought hard who to vote for. After a lengthy discussion, we decided that we should vote for Mr Tan GG*.


We continued our very in depth discussion over yoghurt. See, my yoghurt has nata de coco. They said it's Dr TT's white hair. Viv ordered a mixture of flavours. So hers is the one who supported both the ruling and the opposition party. The other 2 are just there for show.

Hanging out with my dear friends is so fun! As usual, we discussed about education, our children's development, fashion, cooking, food, health, family etc. I love these friends of mine!

*Tan GG= Tan Gu Gu

媛媛爱爸爸~

睡觉时间到了，媛媛自己刷牙时，帮还没回家的爸爸准备好牙刷和牙膏。

Bento #180

I love this! Prata with nutella! Yummy yummy yummy!

Lesson learnt this morning while I was frying the prata -- do not multi-task when you are pan frying your food. Concentrate on the fire. This morning, I burnt 3 pieces of prata. After the 3rd prata turned into charcoal then I learnt my lesson. How clever.

Bento #179

This "garden" themed bento is for Jaimie. "Mushroom" bread, carrot flowers and a giant, sleepy caterpillar.

My original idea was to put the "umbrella hook" food pick on the bread so that they became umbrellas. However, the food pick could not support the weight of the bread and took up some space in the bento box. So I put in the fish tofu cubes and chuck my "umbrellas" upside down.

Bento #177, Bento #178 and Exchanging Bentos With Students

I shared with my students about bento making during class last week and it got them so excited. They kept bugging me to make bentos for them but it was just impossible to make so many! Hence, I told them we could do a exchange bento! Those of them who wanted to try their hands on bento-making can bring one to school and we would do an exchange.

This morning, I woke up at 5.15am to make 3 bentos. This oven-baked crispy chicken bun was for Clement. The chicken pieces were too chunky so I cut them into halves and they fit nicely.

This was for Jaimie.

I made this for the bento exchange.

After the lesson time, we put our bentos together and took some photos. The students were both shy and proud to show the very FIRST bento they made!
To decide who would take whose bento, we played the "choot hoh beh" game. :D

These bentos may not be the most beautifully ones but they were definitely filled with love. I hope this simple exchange would add some more fond memories to their secondary school life!

Bento #176

Clement said it's "Mister Angry". Jaimie said "His crown is upside down".

That's the difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic person.

In-House Bento-making Workshop

After I conducted the bento making workshop organised by Health Promotion Board (HPB), I received quite a few invitations from several organisations, asking if I could do something similar. I would love to say YES to all of them but it was unfortunate that due to time contraints or logistics problems, I had to turn them down.

Hence,when my colleague, SW, approached me and asked me if I could do a in-house bento making workshop with her Girl Guides, I said yes immediately! :)

After some discussion with SW, we decided to keep it simpler by just doing bread bento. I listed down the stuff needed and SW settled that with the girls. We used the school's cookery room for the workshop. Quite simple logistic!

We began with workshop with a 45mins "theory" lesson. After that, the girls couldn't wait to start the hands-on.

They were more creative than I thought! They had very simple tools to play with compared to the participants at the HPB workshop but their creations were just as exciting!




Some colleagues came to attend the workshop too!

The girls had a lot of fun for 2 hours! They were so proud of their own creation and they were excited about presenting their bento to their parents. Awwww... this is why I like to conduct workshops!

As my morning routine has changed, I haven't been able to make "presentable" bentos which I can blog about but I still make simple ones for Jaimie and Clement. The happy faces on the students gave me a glimpse of how Jaimie looked when she brought her bento to school.

What is bento? Bento is LOVE. :)

Angry (Bird) -Angie

Remember I mentioned about the talented, funny-to-the-max comic artist Saulne whom we met during our trip to France?

That day, one of my colleagues SW posted something in her FB status which I thought was SO COOL.

"Life is like playing angry bird. When you fail, there will be a few pigs laughing."

I had to share with Saulne (Sylvain) this phrase because he is a big addict fan of angry bird! Then we started to talk about angry birds and I told him some of my students described me as "an angry bird"...=.=

He said it gave him an idea for a comic and he used my face in the comic!

Oh my god!!!! This is SOOOO COOOLL!!!! I have a comic strip drawn using my face!!! This is totally AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much, my friend!!!