Posts (page 2)

I'll start by saying that I burnt the pack of corn soup that I bought from muji while following the instructions to heat it in the microwave oven!

anyone tried the packet soups from muji before? it is strange that the instructions didn't say to add water to the powdered soup...but nevertheless, I trusted the instructions and well, burnt it. :( luckily it didn't catch fire or anything~

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realised that I have not blogged since almost 1 month. so you know, there's nothing very exciting going on in my busy life...

I finally signed up for inline skating lessons after thinking and talking about them for ages. I am on the 1 month unlimited package from Skateline and so far, I have attended 4 lessons at Bishan Park over the weekends. It's tiring to travel 1.5h to the park and attend the 1h lesson. and it's like the more lessons you go, the better value it is so I'm aiming to go for 2 lessons a week.

I am rather amazed at myself for my Sat schedule - If I'm going for the 8:30am lesson, I wake up and leave home at about 7:15am (even earlier than going to work!), take a bus to JE station followed by train to AMK and bus to Bishan Park; after the lesson ends at about 9:45am, I get home at about 11:15am, shower and rest a bit then leave at 1:15pm for my French class.

actually it is more efficient to go directly for my class after skating but it means I have to bring a change of clothes and try to shower at the washroom at the park. moreover, it's tiring to lug the skates around.

anyway, I just want to learn the proper skating technique to skate more efficiently and probably won't continue the lessons past the 1 month plan. however, so far, the only useful point I learnt is how to heel brake correctly and I'm still not good at that.

oh, let me rant!!! there was 1 lesson where a instructor failed me at the lesson (i.e. have to re-take that lesson!) and it was a simple lesson of skating/moving...whatyoucallit..argh. I was so angry because I think I was FINE and he made me waste 1 lesson to re-take when I can move on. after I skated for his evaluation, another lady in the class said I'd pass for sure and he failed me citing poor balance! and the next day I went to retake that lesson, the instructor said I'm already very good at skating, no problem and I lamented to him that yesterday the other instructor failed me! GRRR~~! luckily, this instructor taught me a bit more in preparation for the next lesson so I felt I got a bit more value out of it.

now, whenever I go for lesson, I hope and hope I don't get that particular instructor - I don't like his attitude. when the lesson just started that day and he was starting to talk to us, a parent crossed his path and he gave him a look and let out an exasperated/irritated sigh kinda sound...if you can imagine..I don't like this type of people!! I think the parent was wrong to do that but he can speak to the parent instead of expressing his irritation in this manner!

Next lesson is on A-frame turn but it doesn't seem like a very useful skill.. :S

I need skating kakis!

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we went for our 1st japanese lesson last week and there's so many things to learn. I keep trying to recall how I learnt chinese previously. I think japanese is more difficult than french in the aspect that the characters don't make any sense whereas some french words can be easily deduced. however, grammar in japanese is simpler. let's see how it goes. argh, the 3h lesson only has a 10min break - I had thought there'd be some time to get food in the middle of the lesson. so now, I must eat something in office before going for class or my tummy will start growling again..oops~

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did I mention that I had thought of going US for a holiday? anyway, the plan is scrapped because it is so expensive - airfare and accomodation are killers. so, I decided to bring my parents to Taiwan for a holiday instead~~ yay, I love Taiwan!!

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I'm glad the weather has cooled down a bit in the past month. at least, now I don't reach office/home in perspiration. august should be a busy month for work... 加油！

we are going to start learning Japanese at Bunka in July! pretty excited about learning a new language, hope I don't drop out of the course too soon, haha.

I wonder how difficult it is - some say it's easy yet some say it's difficult. anyway, I'm sure Japanese is more useful than French in Singapore so perhaps I can actually use it in future jobs etc.

anyone knows when is it?

I heard about this event on Yes933 over the weekend but I didn't manage to catch the date. I think I heard it will be at Bugis and they'll be autographing the live concert CD album as well as the concert tickets. (the Yes933 website is horrible to navigate and I can never find any useful information on schedules of artiste interviews, etc.)

update:
they'll be here on Thurs 19 Jun 7pm at Bugis!

something to look forward to! :D

Date: 2 Aug 2008
Venue: Max Pavilion

there's a pre-order going on but I don't think I'm going for the $148 tix... :S

work is busy busy busy...after about 4 months of slacking, it's good that it keeps me occupied but rather stressed as well since I'm taking on this role for the 1st time. worrying over many things and must keep reminding myself "it's just work...it's just work, it's not my life...".

since I joined this co., I never had to attend as many night meetings as my colleagues but now, I am having to attend / hold some meetings and it's draining. even though I go to work about 1h later, it's pretty rushed in the evening; when I finally settle down for the night at 9-ish, it's time to prepare for meeting which is usually around 10 or 11. well, it's like when you know there's a meeting later, you can't really relax to enjoy the night even before the meeting. then after the meeting, inevitably end up doing some work for another 30mins - 1 hour. and I have no more time to myself for the night.

I can't imagine how my manager and colleagues work such hours, and to think they have many more meetings in the night and several projects on hand. I understand their frustration when they hear people from other countries say things like "I do not attend any meetings after 8pm", etc. and over here they are working day and night. :S how unfair.

五月天新创作! 出頭天~~

learnt that a friend is organising a charity drive to raise victims of Cyclone Nargis. PhotoAid is a group of volunteer photographers and for this initiative, 100% of the funds goes to Salvation Army.

if you are interested to contribute or volunteer, information is here.

I first heard the word "dibs" on an episode of big bang theory and then shortly after, heard it again in another show that I watched (can't remember which one).

so here it is, an explanation on dibs. reminds me of how when we were kids, we called "chop" while sticking out our index and middle fingers together to avoid doing a task or taking on a role. now, that sounds like "no dips'!

cool~~

got the bf to watch big bang theory and he found it really good...keke. great comedy!

we spent sunday skating at the coastal park connector, starting from changi beach park towards east coast park, covering a distance of about 8km and took about 1h. it was quite a chore to get there - took a train to tanah merah mrt station and then a cab to the carpark at changi beach park.

from there, we walked about 200m to the start of the connector just beside the road. it was then he realised that he forgot to bring socks!! anyway, we put on our skates and off we went~~

on the route, there were quite a number of cyclists, joggers, skaters...but there's ample space for everyone. we skated past noisy aeroplanes landing and taking off. :)

had a few "obstacles" along the way...
- 50m from where we started on the tarred path, there's a section of short concrete path that is slightly inclined. it was somewhat difficult since we are not very stable, so we were holding the side rails for support over there.
- quite a lot of fallen twigs and branches on the path.
- after that, we realised that we had to cross a road (horrors!!). then we realised that it's a private road so vehicles usually do not turn into it. but still, it's a road... luckily, we crossed it safely and it was quite an easy straight route for the next 6+ km.
- somewhere along the route there's a short "bridge" laid with red tiles and presented some difficulty for us too.
- nearing our destination, we had to cross another small road and this time, there's traffic!! :O quite a feat for us as we gingerly skated across.
- when almost reaching ECP, the path was more like for pedestrians rather than a route and that was not easy.

when we reached ECP, his foot was hurting from the skating so he walked while I skated until the mcdonald's area. then, we proceeded on foot towards the new playground which was at the previous big splash. gees, it was such a long walk (burdened by carrying skates too) to get there and I really wanted to turn back. :S

the place is not very interesting actually. we had a late dinner at OldTown White Coffee - the food was just so-so and the staff seemed confused on the table numbers; they were walking around with food on their trays and looking for the correct table!

from there, we had to figure out how to get back. luckily, we noticed an underpass beside the playground and taking that, we were able to reach a bus-stop. I thought we had to walk back the the mcdonald's area *faint* hmm anyway, now I know of an alternative entry point to ECP besides taking bus no. 16 to the marine parade bus-stop!

my skating is still bad...thinking of really signing up for lessons so that I can skate properly...

ok, I just realised that we can actually browse the podcast directory on itunes! so I found several resources for learning French and was looking at the comedy podcasts too.

found Lewis Black Root of All Evil to be quite funny - the latest episode is mocking facebook.