Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and wishing everyone who knows me a wonderful 2011! It's certainly been an epic start to the year esp with what happened early this morning during "The Bangalah Experience" with Jon and co. I shan't give the details but suffice to say that it was really epic and provides further affirmation as to why I shouldn't mess with alcohol (which I don't even though ppl keep asking me to drink)... It was pretty hilarious before the whole mess started though and ytd brought a whole new meaning to vanilla cone, thanks to our ever politically incorrect PY and his extremely LOL comments and interpretations! =p

Attending a colleague's wedding solemnization later and shall spend these few hours before it to start clearing up my room which never really got going during the year! But before that, some updates on the week's events:

(1) Mon (27th Dec) - had dinner at Katong Junction's Ju Shin Jung with Jon and co. and the food was decent. If you order an ala-carte dish, you get a lot of vegetarian side dishes which are quite nice. The kids were funny as usual and PY and LJ were like serving me drinks and food throughout the dinner cos they were jokingly trying to get me to pay for their meals. FL came very late and it was funny cos before that some of them were suggesting what to get for DS's upcoming birthday party at MBS and they were joking about the idea of FL being the star performer of the night and they had some pretty cheeky suggestions which I can't mention here but they were utterly hilarious. After that we were trying to find some place to grab ice-cream/gelato and we walked for quite a long time from Roxy Square to Parkway Parade to Marine Parade CC but to no avail cos the shops were closed so in the end we landed up at the Mac's near PP haha...

(2) Tue (28th Dec) - had the most intense workout that I ever had! Started off with climbing stairs at this 25-storey block and did two sets from bottom to the top (so 48 storeys worth of stairs in total) and I was quite proud of myself cos I didn't stop through both sets though we had a short interval to rest in between the sets. =) After that we hit the gym with 7 supersets (meaning combining 2 exercises into 1 set) and finished with 2 new abs exercises which were ultra-painful and I'm still feeling it after 4 days! But I felt a great sense of achievement though it's tough to do this once school reopens cos you can't keep spending 2.5 hours at the gym (at least not with my kind of working lifestyle)...

Met up with my army friends for dinner and pool and a friend is expecting a child in May while another is dating a Japanese lady (some May-Dec relationship which is interesting I guess but I wonder how stable such relationships are). Pool was pretty crappy and I'm still upset that I can't finish off games somehow when I'm going for the black ball which is causing me to lose when victory is almost at hand but oh well, just gotta try and learn how to see out games in future! The trash talk amongst us was utterly hilarious though and thankfully I managed to avoid being last or else I'll hear no end to it till our next pool outing lol.

(3) Wed (29th Dec) - Met up with YH for lunch at Tampines One's NYDC (food there was so-so) to catch up as well as pass her some stuff then went for a little shopping around there and bought some stuff from Natural Project, which is quite a common shopping ground for me in recent years. Still need much more clothes for this year though! Must press on with more shopping!

(4) Thu (30th Dec) - Met up with ZAM and XL at City Hall for dinner and we went to Raffle's Place's Watami - food there is generally good (loved the salmon sashimi there) and one of the most important factor to me that makes me wanna go back to any eatery is if they have nice and cheap drinks, which they do cos they have my fav Kyoho Calpis Soda at only $3.9++! They also have quite a few nice side-dishes such as the butter scallops and the mixed tempura was good though the mixed yakitori wasn't too great (I suggest ordering separate ones)...

Oh, and I put on the tie that they bought for me for my birthday cos they asked to see it (I even dressed formally to meet them for this haha) and it looked really nice with the shirt that I had chosen to wear haha! Didn't expect it though cos I thought it would've looked better with a white shirt (which for some reason it seems to have disappeared for some time) so I was pleasantly surprised. Actually I wouldn't mind wearing ties to school once in a while, which I have done before years ago, cos it's a good accessory that gives some freshness to your appearance and it doesn't have to be too costly like buying new shirts for every single day cos guys' clothes are not cheap! It's also more professional looking but I guess some people might think it's troublesome or attention-seeking so they avoid that in schools but I think it's a nice idea, just as some lecturers do apparently at least for dentistry, according to XL... Well, maybe I will appear in a tie to teach one of these days at an opportune time I suppose haha...

Went to Anderson's for ice-cream after dinner and it was pretty expensive stuff! Then again I eat at Haagen-Daaz's once in a while and it's also not exactly cheap stuff either haha...

ZY gave us souvenirs from China and as usual she's quite thoughtful in her choice of gifts and I could learn a thing or too also I guess though I have tried to think about what others may like but maybe I could spend more time looking for even better gifts and also to be more appreciative of the people around me... Yes, I shall do that in 2011!

(5) Fri (31st Dec) - went gym in the morning for another painful 2.5 hr session then had lunch at Popeye's before coming home to chill. Then went with Jon to fetch DS from his home because apparently his parents wouldn't let him out to hang out unless his friends are around due to some incident that happened when he was out clubbing recently... Met ZT for dinner at Parkway Parade's Ichiban Boshi and the food was decent. My Garlic Katsu set was alright, though I had to grind the sesame seeds to make this paste for the chicken haha so it was kinda leh cheh... Ended up at ECP after walking around to buy drinks and ice (which was extremely hard to find!) and the whole area was like super packed unlike the year before which seemed to be quite empty. In the end we finally found a spot to sit and chill and it was quite ironic cos of the people that we were sitting beside. At midnight the ships there set off flares and we could see from afar some of the fireworks that were being fired off and after midnight things went pretty fast and the rest is history as mentioned at the start of my post haha...

Hmmm, since it's the new year I suppose it's normal to look at what I want to do for the year ahead and what I thought of last year to see if I've actually made any progress with my resolutions then... Flashback to my post on 12th Jan 2010...

(a) Health is wealth - generally I did go back home early during the first couple of weeks before school started since I was teaching JC1s but again once the work started coming in I found myself stuck in school till 7+ most of the time which is unhealthy. JC2 doesn't look promising based on my last 2 cycles so I guess I just have to try and manage my life to the best of my ability... On the bright side, I have been exercising regularly thanks much to Jon (our "slave-driver" lol) though mainly it's working out in the gym and not so much of running, cycling or badminton that I mentioned at the start of the year. Hope to be able to do more of cycling and badminton though cos it's group activities and it's quite fun... Prob will be some time before I play soccer again as I try to give some more time for my ankle to heal properly...

(b) Being more efficient - this one is a big-time fail I must say. Though I get quite a bit of work done, I still find myself wasting too much time searching for stuff cos I haven't completed my spring cleaning yet. It's very daunting though I must say cos there are like so much stuff to clear so I just need to keep doing some everyday starting from today! Hmmm, and yes I shall endeavour to reply all emails immediately instead of waiting to settle other stuff first so shall start to clear my emails soon today!

(c) Building relationships - I think by now I have a better idea of who are the ones that I can depend on and trust and keep in touch in the future and those who have just come and go in my life so ya, shall make more efforts to strengthen ties this year!

(d) Learning new skills - some success I guess, at least I managed to cook fried rice with the help of my da jie and best friend though I think I've kinda forgotten how to do it lol. Really need to type down the steps and revise cos I can't rem which ingredients to put in at which time... It's fun though very tiring to cook for others but it's something that I still want to pursue this year. For photography I've picked up a couple of stuff but as Jon said, just attending a few lessons can't help much cos you'll tend to forget and you need to explore and just keep shooting and tinkering to find out what's the best setting and angle to take shots and other little tricks... But at least I know a little bit more about taking better photographs so hopefully I'll improve on it this year! Didn't have time for wushu and as for dancing I only picked up some stuff from the Melbourne trip but it's fun and I will want to learn but for now just need to focus on building strength cos some of the stuff that I have in mind requires a lot of strength and endurance!

Read in the papers that we shouldn't try to be too ambitious in our new year resolutions because we tend to be so unfocused that nothing gets done so I shall just stick to what I've set last year and continue to make improvements to all areas, esp for the efficiency part! Jia you to me and it's time to start work on clearing up before I leave for the wedding! Updates tmr!