(1) Health Screening on 11th Jan - It's a pain to have to fast for this and I decided to do a thorough one this time since it may be the last time that I have a heavily-subsidised health screening so I opted for the comprehensive package and 4 other add-ons to check my prostate, pancreas, heart, and I think my thyroid. Good thing is that generally everything is good/normal, except for my cholesterol level which was slightly high (208 vs 200) but still considered normal. The price for having too much good food! =P
(2) MJC Open House on 11th Jan - Jon, LJ and Ain came back but I didn't get to interact much with them cos I had to attend to queries at our chemistry booth in the library in the afternoon. Thanks much to Wei Ru and Ai Ting from 08S415 who did such a great job of explaining some of the things to the students and also shared their positive experiences about the school and the teachers! It was actually my first time doing this duty but there wasn't much to prepare since I just speak from experience so it was quite manageable. Most of the students also seemed very nice except for two -one was a v dao 6 pointer (or so it seems based on what the mother said indirectly) who pulled a long face throughout the time her mother was asking questions. I hope it's cos she doesn't want to come to MJC cos I wouldn't want to teach such a person! The other was a very quiet boy who's mother seemed quite intimidating and demanding based on what she was asking and it seems like he had problems communicating cos the mother talked almost all the time even though he could have answered some of the questions like his L1R5. Other than that it was almost the same stuff to me - performances by our performing arts groups (the wushu costumes were v nice though!) and our principal killed Godzilla that's terrorising our city (the theme is Ten-@-City in view of MJC's 10th Anniversary) lol...
(3) Karaoke Sessions - (a) on 15th Jan - with the crappy boys at Katong Shopping Centre's Teo Heng and again, they sang a lot of oldies (esp from Bee Gees) while I went for the slightly newer songs haha. Highlight of the session was not the singing though I would say - but rather it was LJ's vanilla cheesecake that he made which was fantastic! Apparently the vanilla essence from Phoon Huat was really magical!
After that we went for gelato at Coccogelo which was just down the road and we ordered all 11 flavours available there, at a cost of just $4 per pax it was definitely worth it! A good variety of flavours (pistacchio was apparently the hot favourite, but there many other good ones and in fact the only one I didn't really fancy was coffee but that's just cos I'm not a big fan of coffee). Highly recommend this place if anybody is in the Katong area!
I went for my reunion dinner at my uncle's place in Lorong Chuan after that and one of my aunties said I looked groovy and one of my uncles said I looked sexy LOL. The latter was certainly a strange comment but generally my relatives think I look better. =D
(b) on 21st Jan - with HS, Jo, Eric, PN and Geraldine (Eric's friend) at Smith Street's 10 Dollar Club. I sang mainly English songs cos I've not listened to much new Chinese songs and I've long been bored of singing the same old Chinese songs but I did join in the Chinese songs in the last hour when we sang some of the uptempo songs and we had some silly dancing going on as well. Really funny stuff but PN didn't film the best part when HS and I were synchronising our swaying to the beat and snapping our fingers haha.
After that we had dinner at Hometown Restaurant, which was very near the karaoke place. It's a place that's apparently known for Sze Chuan food and the food was generally quite tasty but it was a little too salty for some of the dishes (there's was this Chong Qing diced chicken and the vegetables). The ma po tofu was outstanding as well as the beef soup and I would highly recommend these dishes. Price was reasonable (about $20 per pax). =)
(4) Wicked on 17th Jan - Met up with Jon, LJ and Ain for dinner at City Hall and we ended up at Breek's at Marina Square. Have not eaten there for some time and the menu has changed quite a bit but the food still ain't great to me. Had some fish dish and salad and smoothie and it was just ok to me. At about $40, it wasn't worth the money to me. We then headed down to MBS to catch Wicked, a musical which I didn't know much about it but I was glad I joined them for it! We bought the circle seats ($125 + $3 for booking fee) and had a pretty decent view. The singing and acting were v good, in particular the 2 female leads and the settings and costumes were all v nicely done. I would strongly recommend this!
(5) Council TAs' Gathering on 20th Jan - 7 of us (Jeremy, Lawrence, Karen, Samantha, Serene, June and I) met up at June's place for lunch after the CNY celebrations in school and the food from Yum Cha was great! I was surprised cos I tot Yum Cha was just ok but it was above my expectations and the price was v reasonable - $20 per pax for noodles and 9 other dishes. Watched Running Man (apparently a v popular Korean game show esp with the students) and it was pretty funny!
Talked to Karen about singing cos she told me she has been taking singing lessons for 10 years and I had quite a few insights such as the mechanics of breathing and voice projection and I think I should make an effort to improve on my singing! It's interesting that there is much science behind it and not just a trial and error and practice kinda thing. We also talked about composing and it was good to hear that she agreed with me about how many of the songs nowadays have such crappy lyrics and I shared about my thoughts of composing an album of my own songs, something which I really want to do and hope I can get some headway this year. =)
Over lunch, we talked about a whole range of matters but the one thing that stuck in my head was UTI, LOL. Apparently it's something that females would be familiar with and that was something new to me! We also had our birthday gift exchange and in the 2 days before the gathering I went to various places to find what I had in mind for Samantha (we were each assigned one person to buy a present for) - a couple pillowcase which I felt was appropriate since she's moved into her new place recently. Finally found it at Bugis Junction after going to Nex (which is a very irritating place to shop) and the malls in Tampines!
(6) CNY - reunion dinner was better than expected - we actually talked more than any of the previous years and hopefully there will be some inroads this year to a better environment at home... Other than that it was quite the usual, grandma's place in the afternoon to settle the visiting on my mom's side and uncle's place in the night to settle my dad's side. Positive reviews from some of my relatives about my new image so that's good! =)
Played mahjong with my brother, sister and her bf at my uncle's place on chu er and I managed to pull off a win right at the end when I won a 6-tai hand to turn my $3.3 deficit to a $3.1 gain and taking first place from my sis haha. Didn't take the money though cos my brother lost to me and my sis. =p
(7) Food Reviews - (a) Nicolas Le Restaurant - went on 6th Jan with Da Jie to try one of the best restaurants in Singapore apparently (at least based on TripAdvisor) and it was indeed a v enjoyable dinner experience (can't beat Robuchon but the food was very good at a pretty decent price of about $120 per pax). I can't recall the names so I have referred to the website for them. Started with some complimentary crisp bread with duck rillette - not a fan of duck but it was tasty! Great start to the evening! First dish up was ORGANIC HEN EGG 'A LA COQUE' - layman terms it's close to a half-boiled egg but the egg was v nicely done with the broth and some ham. You might think it's just egg but I think the easier the dish seems, the harder it is to actually make it taste wonderful and wonderful it was! I realised a lot of French dishes focus on the peripheral stuff like these kind of broths to make the dish taste really good because of how they complement each other in the taste. Next up were CONFIT HOKKAIDO SCALLOP and ATLANTIC COD FISH CRUSTED WITH MASAGO - v fresh scallop and fish so they were firm when you bit into them, just the way you would want your seafood to be! Followed by TAGLIOLINI PASTA - liked the way it was done with the minced beef. My main was the 12 HOURS BRAISED ORGANIC VEAL CHEEK - was smooth and it was good but not as good as the beef cheeks I had at Bistro Suri about a year plus ago! Dessert was THREE SWEET TASTING - I really loved this one because it's like a 3-in-1 and all 3 were good - the almond panna cotta, fromage blanc gelato (I think) and some chocolate stuff... Btw, if you want to look at the pics, you could refer to a food blog I found with a more detailed review - http://foodmakespeoplehappy.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicolas-restaurant.html. =)
(b) Margarita's - went on 11th Jan with Da Jie, "Mummy" and Jojo and it's located around Telok Kurau. First time trying out Mexican food and it was quite a good experience. We shared some nachos dish, beef and chicken with fajitas, and portobello mushrooms. Can't find the name of the dishes (can't even find the website for the place disappointingly - you'd expect most food places to have a proper website that's easy to find) but generally quite tasty though slightly pricey at about $54 per pax (even taking into account the pitcher of martini they had). Reading online it seems that the branch at Dempsey's is crappy and the one at Faber Drive is v good so if anybody is interested in Mexican cuisine you might want to check it out =)
(c) Ajisen Gourmet Town - went on 22nd Jan with Da Jie and it's located at Nex. It's actually a mixture of Japanese food places (including Ajisen Ramen, which I've sworn off, together with Sakae Sushi cos the food really isn't up to standard) so you can take your pick. I ordered some combo set with salmon, chicken and beef and the beef was sucky (too much tendon perhaps, too chewy I barely ate any beef). The butter scallops was more decent but generally not great food in my opinion.
(d) Hawker Food - I decided I should include some of the very good hawker food that I've tried recently - honourable mentions go to Block 29 Bendemeer Market and Food Centre's Hwa Heng Beef Noodles and Sim's Place Prawn Noodles. For $3, Hwa Heng gives large amounts of tender beef and with rice included, definitely great value for money. Also for $3, Sim's Place's Pai Gu Xia Mian has a decent portion of great tasting food. The pai gu in particular is v good and the soup base is also nice! Also, at Block 69 Geylang Bahru Market and Food Centre, Mui Kee Noodles, Zhou, and Hong Mei Western Food serve up some great stuff at great prices. For $2.5, Mui Kee gives a decent portion of bak chor mee which is tasty and according to HS, our BCM expert, this stall is special because it uses a different oil to cook compared to the usual lard that is used. For $3.1, you can get a big bowl of pork porridge with egg added. It doesn't seem like there's a name to the stall so I just call it Zhou because the only signboard they have is a big orange one with the word Zhou. I can't remember if I talked about Hong Mei in my earlier posts cos I ate there a v long time ago but for about $5, Hong Mei has a wide range of good cutlets with a special batter that makes it taste good and you don't get tired of eating the batter unlike most other western food found at hawker centres.
Ok, that's almost it for now. Progress in my New Year's Resolution is pretty decent: (1) In terms of exercise, daily exercising proves to be tough but I've managed to do it about 80% of the time so far, which is quite good considering some of the times I missed is because I went out almost the whole day. I sleep an average of 7.5+ hours per day (including long naps) and except for about 2 days when I slept at 2 or 3, I've slept at or before 1am, which is very good already. Can't remember if I ate fruits everyday but considering I usually drink fruit juice daily in school and I've been eating bananas at home regularly, at least 80% of the time I have had fruit intake. (2) Work wise, it has been the easiest time in my life at MJC ever since I gave up my coordinatorship role. Practically everyday I report at 8.30am, have breakfast till 9, then do various stuff, not necessarily work related, and have time to chit chat occasionally. It's a totally new outlook on life - as long as I do what I need to do then I'm done, no need to exert myself too much since there isn't much motivation to do so. As we joked amongst ourselves, I have learnt to adopt the philosophies of the "Wu Jiao" (an inside joke). Also, I have become the time keeper, getting the people to go eat at 12pm and then leave at 1pm and it feels good to see the sun when I go to school and go home. That should be the way life is, not the 7 to 7 lifestyle I used to have for the last 6 years... Also, currently I practically don't work on weekends nor when I get home so it has really been minimal working. The JC1s are finally coming in next week though and hopefully I will be able to keep things at about the same pace though we have to start coming in by 730 already sad to say... Well, as long as I can leave by 1pm I'll be happy! So generally I'd say I'm pretty contented and slightly on the happier side though there's something (or maybe someone hahaha) lacking in my life that I have yet to find. (3) I need to start reading up on 1 country that I want to travel to soon! Probably Vietnam or North Korea (my ex-student jio me to go lol)...
K, that's really it for now!
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