Sunday, December 23, 2007

Ok, before the NZ photos come in, I shall give a brief update of what I've been doing since 21st Nov (a continuation of the '我很忙' post).

21 - 22/11: photoshop course - full day. learnt quite abit abt photoshop, layers and stuff, considering how the little i know abt photoshop all came fr my own trial-and-error and some crash cses fr friends over the msn. also learnt how to add shadows to an object dat is photoshopped into a pic. the teacher waz an italian guy who is rather interesting. he has this online forum dat allows pple to ask and answer qns pertaining to probs faced during photoshopping. also has some rather gd recommendations on where to get nice brushes or how to attain certain special effects. check it out.

21/11: cousin got married. i waz duely impressed by the flash and video montages shown. quite well done. recently into all these photoshop/flash stuff, since i waz in the midst of a photoshop cse. hah. my bro waz duely excited, since he said it waz his first time attending a wedding dinner of someone he actually knows. for me, i waz quite sure i wasnt excited as dat muz have been like the nth wedding ive attended over the years (where n>25) and considering how i waz gonna attend another wedding really soon.

23/11: open house rehearsal. dept move. prayer for a friend's wedding. [this entire week spent doing budget and all the instructor stuff]

24/11: open house. wedding. outreach waz cancelled in the end and we had a time of thanksgiving instead.

25/11: friend's bday dinner.

26 - 30/11: 'I HOPE I GET TO REST THIS WEEK. (READ: NUAH, WAKE UP LATE, DO WHAT I WANT, NO TIMINGS TO FIT INTO)' well, i din really got wat i had hoped for. had class chalet fr 27 - 30/11. however, as many of my students were working, none stayed over the first night. i went down to check-in, students hadnt appeared. went out to get some groceries for them. students hadnt appeared. finally when they appeared, i needed to go. so they hung ard and then went home. 2nd night waz the bbq. went down with another teacher. stayed for awhile. went off, only to realize i waz holding onto the belongings of a student. went back to return and also to chat with another student i had not seen in a while. 3rd night none stayed over as well, so i had to grab the keys fr a student at night and went down to check out the following morn. i felt much like a butler, checking in and out and doing stuff but not staying for the chalet. i wish my 5a2 students all the best.

1/12: friend's wedding in jb. gosh, this waz like 跋山涉水 juz to attend a wedding. like wat my other friend who went with me said, 我们真的是给足了面子. hahah. we met at woodlands to take a bus into jb. i waz late. the buses were crowded. when we reached jb, we took a cab to the restaurant, thinking it waz juz a short journey. we even bargained with the taxi driver for 12 ringgits instead of the 15 he wanted. however, we were to find out dat it waz indeed a rather long journey, much further than the tebrau market i usu only travel to when i go to jb. it waz an arduous journey to the country club - the journey waz so long we thought the driver waz taking us via a roundabout way. even when we reached the country club, there waz still quite a long way in till we reached the restaurant lor. and when we arrived, we realized we were one of the earliest and most punctual ones. the dinner started ard 1.5 hrs later. interestingly, tho, i met one of my crusade friends and we cld catch up a little. and thankfully, there waz a chartered bus to bring us back to the causeway, if not i dinno how we were gonna hail a cab in dat ulu place.

2/12: 21km standard chartered run. status: completed. timing: 2:20:02. it waz a (very) slow but gd run for me. i enjoyed the whole process and actually felt quite gd thru'out the run - at least i wasnt like dying as i reached the finish line. in fact, it waz one of the betta runs, compared to all the practices i had been having with my friend at ecp the past couple of mths. altho the longest we trained up to waz only 16km, physically i actually felt betta during the 21km run itself. i waz able to enjoy the sights and sounds along the way (i liked the route this yr) - the beautiful sunrise, the pumping muscles of the marathon runners, their grit and will, the guy who ran with a tyre (yes, the real bulky clumsy tyre), my friend whom i waz pleasantly surprised to see..

3 - 7/12: 'I HOPE I GET TO REST AGAIN THIS WEEK. (ditto)' well, i din get to rest. again. instead, i think i did alot alot of things. co chalet fr 4 - 6/12. stayed overnight on both nights, tho i did go back to sch the 2nd morn to do work and then home for a little rest before heading back at night. the bbq food waz gd and we actually finished all the food. in fact, we even bbq-ed on the 2nd night and the food tasted as gd. it waz gd fun with the students and seeing all the alumni coming back. oh, and i went to shashlik on 3/12 to have dinner and thereafter to black angus for desserts with my gd friends. yummy! and i accompanied my student for his check-up on 6/12. it waz a rather gd time to catch up and talk. praying dat his leg heals well and fast. and i went for reachlight on 7/12.

8/12: emcee and translator for colleague's wedding. thank God everything went on smoothly. really thank God, for w/o Him, i wldnt have been able to do it well - i wasnt gan jiong, i din trip on my words and i got my script out (of my mouth) properly, even the throat irritation which i had been having dat kept causing me to cough wasnt apparent at all during the translation, i waz able to speak clearly and loudly, and i waz very sure all these were not by my own efforts. so all glory to Him!

9 - 18/12: OFF TO NEW ZEALAND! (photos will be up soon! watch this space!)

19 - 24/12: x'mas shopping! i had wanted to get x'mas gifts for dear ones this year! but but but the sheer crowd and squeeziness waz too daunting for me. so no x'mas gifts. hahah. i did go down to the book fair at suntec tho. however, cldnt find any gd buys. waz actually looking out for gd chinese books. so instead of shopping for x'mas gifts, i spent the time packing my room and trying to get the old stuff out and create space for new stuff. it waz quite a fulfilling experience, and i took the chance to take stock of my life as i pored thru the things ive been receiving and keeping over the years - cards, gifts, books, photos, cds etc etc.. then one of my army friend's mum passed away. i pray he will be strong in the Lord, coz the Lord is faithful and He works in miraculous ways. ooh ooh ooh, and the latest update fr the iama42scout family (had lunch with a few of them on 21/12): danny is the proud father of a new baby boy, lucas! praise the Lord!

[gosh, i did so many things within the span of juz 1 mth]

[future]

25/12: CHRISTMAS!

26/12 onwards: SCHOOL STARTING REAL SOON! ARGH!

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Saturday, December 22, 2007

Here comes the Chinese books..

1. 东滨北原:东区北区中学学生作品选集
2. 看图念三字经
3. 可爱的花与昆虫 (origami) - 蔡佩伦 (reserved)
4. 漫画选读与习作 (comics) - 吴国雄
5. O Level 华文题解 (pseudo 10-yr series fr a long time ago)
6. 人物表情书法 (how to draw)
7. 微型小说季刊15
8. 微型小说季刊17
9. 文学创作与欣赏
10. 中学好作文:第7集

Keep the orders coming in!

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Hi all. I'm back, finally. (Ooh, it's exactly a month away from the previous post) From New Zealand and to bloggin'. I'm tempted to continue with my previous post and list down the things I did under [future], some of which have now become [past]. However, I'm too lazy to pore through all that I did in the past couple of weeks. So I shall type in a random post before the NZ photos are up, just like how the activity that inspired this post started randomly too.

I was suddenly inspired to pack my cupboards today. As I started to pack one, I was more and more onz about packing the rest. So from my gifts cupboard, I went on to my cards cupboard. Then I proceeded a little to my CD shelf, got bored with it and went over to my books cupboard. And therein lies the motive for this little post. I have many books I want to throw away but are still in rather good (read: covers intact, pages untorn, albeit a little yellow-ish due to age) conditions. So I hereby announce they are up for grabs. If I don't hear from anyone, I shall donate them away by the end of the year.

Anyway, the undermentioned list is more for laughs (looking at the rather hilarious collection of books I've stashed away over the years) than to really must die die get them into the hands of anyone. So here goes..

1. Action! The 3rd Collection (comics) - Chee Chew
2. Advanced Theory of Driving: 5th edition
3. A Level Economics: 1983 - 1996 (assessment book)
4. Atlas for Singapore (for sec sch geog)
5. Basic Theory of Driving: 4th edition
6. Believe it or not! - Bookworm
7. Best Puzzle Challenger 21: Search & Find
8. Best Puzzle Challenger 24: All Fill-ins
9. Bookworm Adventures - Bookworm
10. Bookworm Adventures III - Bookworm
11. Bookworm Brain Boosters - Bookworm
12. Bookworm Busybody - Bookworm
13. Bookworm Great People - Bookworm
14. Bookworm Magic Crazy III - Bookworm
15. Bookworm Magic Crazy IV - Bookworm
16. Bookworm Short Stories 38 - Bookworm
17. Bookworm Short Stories 39 - Bookworm
18. Creation: Temasek Junior College GP Bulletin 1997 (for jc students)
19. Defining Moments: our Army Experience (I really don't know why I have this)
20. Designing with House Plants - Alan Toogood
21. Developing Data Response Skills in GCE A Level Economics - Malcolm Frost (for jc students, tho this author killed my interest in economics, totally) (reserved)
22. Did You Know?
23. Fundamental Civics: Growing Up Happily - Educational Guidance Series (I really don't know why I have this either)
24. Gotcha! Joke Book - Bookworm
25. Heinemann Singapore Atlas (for sec sch geog)
26. How to survive your IPPT - Ker Cheng Lik
27. Images III: The General Paper Bulletin 1995 (for jc students)
28. Insights: The General Paper Bulletin 1996 (for jc students)
29. In the Beginning - Bookworm
30. Love Sent A Sacrifice (music scores) - Geron Davis, Tom Hartley & Dave Williamson (reserved)
31. Microcosm Megabyte: Nanyang Junior College The General Paper Bulletin 2001 (for jc students)
32. More Brain Boosters - Bookworm
33. Mr Kiasu: Everything I Also Want (comics) - the Kuppies
34. Ours to Protect: Nature in Singapore - Chua Ee Kiam
35. Principles of Accounts: 3rd edition - Betsy Li, Tan Sai Kim, Goh Ling Chin (reserved)
36. Shoulder to Shoulder: Our National Service Journal
37. Soccer Joy (comics)
38. Soccer Joy 2 (comics)
39. Social Etiquette with Kool & Ezee - Flora Han, Fiona Tan, Philip Lim
40. The Living Earth Part 3 (encyclopedia-y) - Christine Back
41. The Living Earth Part 4 (encyclopedia-y) - Christine Back
42. Wacky World - Bookworm
43. Wild Birds of Singapore: The Migratory Season (pictorial) - Chew Yen Fook (reserved)
44. World's Greatest Puzzles - Charles Barry Townsend

Yes, yes, I know the list sounds extremely boring. You are probably going like 'What the heck! Who reads such stuff at all?!' I also don't know why I kept them for so long. Looking at the Bookworm series, you can know for sure I once was definitely a bookworm and a Bookworm fan and that these books have been gathering dust and taking up space in my book shelves for a couple of decades (the Bookworm series is really good though - interesting and funny). However, they betray the fact that we (my bro and I) do have quite a good library of good reads from varied authors and genres in our current book shelf. If you do pop over my house, you can ask to take a look at our treasure trove or even borrow a book or two.

By the way, if you seriously want any of these books (I'd be like 'What the heck!'), you can tell me (secretly, if you are afraid people will laugh at your choice of reads) and they are all FREE. So spread the word! And the love!

P/S: Some Chinese books coming up soon.. :)

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