Gratitude Journal for 29th October 2022 (Friday)

Our twinning outfit and shoes

 What I'm grateful about:

• The week flew really fast and it's Friday again! 3 more weeks for the whole school year! 
• P left for PH again and somehow I have gotten used to being by myself at home. 
• We have not received the refunds for our TK tix and it's been almost two weeks, I have an early day off from work today so I went down to their sales office near Bugis area. It went on quite well and hopefully everything is sorted out and we will get back the $$ in another two weeks' time. Feeling so broke as there's so much expenses with the trip coming up. 

What I'm looking forward to:

• We are counting down less than a month to the trip! 29 days to be exact.
• This period is busy busy yet somehow there's many things to look forward to, sending off another batch of students, tying up all loose ends and ending the school year with much excitement and happiness.

Gratitude Journal for 23rd October 2022 (Sunday)

My lovely parents

What I'm grateful about:

• My ever supportive mum, whether is it buying a new house or getting a car, she has been always supportive and positive, giving me the courage to move ahead.
• We invited some old friends over today and had a lovely time. We had been putting this off for ages and I asked P to do it this long weekend as we will be overseas soon.

What I'm looking forward to:

• It's already T4W7 and its a short week, this week I will have no long days so things are great and will pass fast. 
• We are already 33 days to the trip! Just a month and a bit more! 

Gratitude Journal for 22nd October 2022 (Saturday)

Totally candid photo of me outside the restaurant

All of us

What I'm grateful about:

• It's my baby sister and dearest Father's birthday. I'm glad that I have such a wonderful family and my parents are in the best of health. I wish with everything I have in the world that things will stay this way. 
• We decided to have a nice dinner out as birthday celebration. Family craving for Korean BBQ so I brought them to this BBQ friend close to our place and they really had a great time.

What I'm looking forward to:

• More occasions with the folks and I really cherish all these moment nowadays. 
• It's a long weekend for us again so rest well and work harder. 

Gratitude Journal for 19th October 2022 (Wednesday)

 

Cute photo of us doing the jump shot in Ipoh

Things I'm grateful about:

• Although we did not go home as early as we did last year, it is still a blessing we managed to complete everything by the 3rd day and tomorrow we can WFH.
• I took early dinner and early nap and woke up at 9pm, P wanted to have mookata so we went ahead and we did another 6km+ walk. Altogether 21km+ since Sunday!
• Managed to redo my hotel bookings last night, most of the prices went up though price of Oslo hotel went down. Overall same as before as we are now staying one night less than previously.  

Things I'm looking forward to:

• Just one easy day of work on Friday then long weekend again! We are spending time with the folks as it's Dad's birthday. 

Gratitude Journal for 18th October 2022 (Tuesday)

Another random pic from our ECP walks

 Things I'm grateful for:

• The tri-factor to happiness: exercise, meditation and gratitude. There's more to it but I try to keep to these at the very least for my daily dose of happiness, as much as I can. 
• Today's work is getting better and smoother and I got home early, P got my dinner these days and I nap before the 6km PCN walks.

Things I'm looking forward to:

• 4 weeks to school hols! 5 weeks for us! 39 days to my grand trip and the plans are falling into place. :)

Gratitude Journal for 17th October 2022 (Monday)

 

Throwback to our biz class adventure from Copenhagen Jun22 

Things I'm grateful for:

• Woke up to rainy weather this morning but generally everything went on well on the first day of marking. Unlike last year when I left the school with terrible headache till the next morning, this year I'm just sleepy and hungry. Hopefully next few days will be even better. 
• Non teaching days like these always seems like holidays to me, but I'll sleep earlier tonight to be more refreshed tomorrow. 

Things I'm looking forward to:

• Counting down to 39 days more to the trip! Just one month plus plus to go... hope the next few weeks fly by without us noticing. I'm just truly excited although the next one month should be easy as we are winding down to the holidays. 

Gratitude Journal for 16th October 2022 (Sunday)

 

P and I had a nice dinner at St Marc Cafe (ECP)

What I'm grateful about:

• On Saturday morning, we woke up to the news of TK screwing up our flight to Oslo, when we are counting down to 40 days to our trip. It was stressful as we could not change our flights with the same airline and we are quite disappointed with them giving us problems when the trip is so near and we actually booked the air tix like 4 months ago. If we stick to TK, the transit time in Istanbul is really long, we can only fly on Sunday night (instead of Friday night) and we'll only reach Oslo on Monday noon. We started looking for alternatives and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we paid a total of 4k for our biz class tix and they are actually refunding us 5k. So we earned 1k from there, which is really weird. I looked for alternative flights to Europe (anywhere cheap where we can transit to Oslo) but most of those did not work out. I suddenly remembered it could be much cheaper or easier if we station ourselves at nearby hubs like BKK, KL or Jakarta instead. And voila! We found biz class tix on Qatar at 5.7k, in total we have to top up another $500 each to transit at BKK and get on Qatar but Qatar is way better than TK (or even better than SQ) and we're excited to try their premium product on A380 flight. Soooo looking forward now.  
• After all the stress and excitement, we finally took our nap and made our way to HHN10. I think I'll do a separate post for that. 
• We went ECP for our weekly walk and bonding time this evening. It was lovely.

What I'm looking forward to:

• The trip! The trip! The trip! Although we're financially drained again, I'm really ready to YOLO and just be in the moment. Another 40 days to go.

Gratitude Journal for 14th October 2022 (Friday)

My deferred entry from 2020

Things I'm grateful about: 

• I actually got a slot for Tokyo Marathon when everyone is dying to get a chance to run! It has a lot of eager participants since the race had been deferred for 3 years already. I actually got my slot when I balloted in 2019 and it was the 4th time I tried for the slot and the only time I got lucky. Unfortunately, COVID struck and I did not get to run after training. Now I'm super unfit and I'm not sure if I should go ahead, actually I signed up for Nagoya marathon (which is one week after Tokyo Marathon) instead, thinking I'll just try my best to get back into running aim to finish within the COT. Its less stressful as there's a lot of restrictions running TM and I'll get to travel a little after the race. Sigh, think I'll give up my TM slot and try balloting again next year when I'm more confident again.
• I'm glad this week had passed, it's the last full week of teaching before the EYE. I think it could be the last full week we are having till the end of the term as well. 
• I actually said farewell to a beloved ex colleague who had passed on earlier this week. She was one of the first few close mentors I had worked with when I just started teaching graduating students. I still fondly remember her mannerisms, her energy and everything even though we're no longer working together in the same school for the past decade. Its really sad but I'm glad I went to her wake and memorial service. 

Things I'm looking forward to:

• Taking a break from my classes the next one week!
• HHN10 tomorrow! 

Gratitude Journal for 13th October 2022 (Thursday)

Things I'm grateful for:

• It's been a hectic week, I've been frantically marking in school and at home, wishing for this week to be quickly over. Now, I've finally reached Friday which is a the best day for me this week, TGIF!
• I managed to hit my marking target this week and was even more productive than I expected. I stopped my gratitude blogging for a few days as I was really stressed looking at the pile of markings I have at the beginning of the week. I set a target that I will need to finish and return by Friday and I managed to make it by Wednesday! Amazing feat! 
• Today was a really bad day, two extras periods of FTGP, two extra periods of remedial and two extra periods of relief. I was really sulking at my table thinking of the day ahead this morning but I motivated myself by getting through each period and each hour counting down to the end, telling myself 'one at a time'. I made it!

What I'm really looking forward to:

• We are going to HHN this weekend! After two years of no-go due to COVID, we are back again! I cant rem how many times we've been to HHN, but it had become a tradition for us.
• Finishing the last 5 weeks of school strong and happy, I would say this is the best time of the whole year, winding down to December hols! 

Random photo from our ECP walk

Gratitude Journal for 9th October 2022 (Sunday)

Heavy traffic near the sports hub, but the clouds are nice

 What I'm grateful for:

• Lots of family time with the folks today, since we rented the car we brought papa and mama to quite a few places (visit our relatives) and ran our errands as well.
• I'm glad and grateful that we were on the road for hours but P did most of the driving. He got comfortable and used to driving here and he didnt mind doing it. It would be really stressful for me if I was in the driver's' seat the whole time.

What I'm looking forward to:

• Since we got used to being behind the wheels, we can consider going on road trips in future and not just dependent on public transport to get us around when we travel abroad.
• Determined to get our own wheels by next year. Just too busy with everything to settle with one right now. 

Gratitude Journal for 8th Oct 2022 (Saturday)

Our mookata dinner

 

Things I'm grateful for:

• P was actually craving for mookata yesterday but I had an early dinner as I was strangely craving for mee sua in the cold weather and I had Grab sending it to me at 5pm. The grand plan was to have mookata on Sat and then go ECP for our walk, so we kept to it.
• Weather was still very cooling and cloudy today, though very very light drizzle fell on us every now and then when we were out and about in the evening.
• We actually walked a total of 21km this week and it was at 3 different places, 7+ km at GBTB, 6+km at our homeground PCN and tonight we walk 8km+ at ECP. I'm actually motivated to go back ECP for my long runs in the weeks to come as I'm going to complete my 10th marathon at Nagoya next year March.

Things I'm looking forward to:

• We're have some family time tomorrow as I'm picking up the folks at 1pm and sending them back to our old place at Sembawang to talk to the tenants.
• Next week is our last full week of lessons, complete with remedial and CCA and stuff. Cant say I'm looking forward to it but I'm looking forward to it to be over. Anyway, October payday is coming up and we're getting a 5% pay raise! 

Gratitude Journal for 8th October 2022 (Friday)

Our playground now

 What I'm grateful for:

• P is at the second stage of visa application, as we are going to the schengen region + UK so the two visas have to be done separately. We met some hiccups as UK visa is having a lot of backlog and the waiting time is 5-7 weeks instead of the usual two weeks! Luckily we can pay extra to solve this issue and did not have to leave his passport with the embassy as he is planning to go home before our trip.
• I really appreciate our red passport now as I had no idea travelling can be so troublesome for other nationalities, we can get to almost everywhere in the world visa free. So far I only applied for visas when going to US and Australia and those can be done online/ immediately. 
• Very cooling weather today, it rained most of today once it was noon. We finally went out for a walk again and usually there's a lot of cyclists on the PCN during weekend but it was so quiet tonight as the sky was still overcasted. 

What I'm looking forward to:

• Nice that I've hit my marking target for today and there's still the weekend to look forward to.
• We are less than 50 days to the grand trip! 

Gratitude Journal for 6th October 2022 (Thursday)

Last Sunday where we watched F1 with a view

Complimentary gift as it's F1, cute exquisite dessert spoons

Things I'm grateful for:

1. I love cooling weather more than the sun and the cooling weather has persisted the whole of this week, since last weekend.
2. Everything went well today, I actually enjoyed myself with the Children's Day celebration, the kids and I had fun. For the first time this year, it actually occured to me that I’ll miss them. 
3. It's the long weekend! It feels good that it's just Thursday and I have a long weekend ahead, though I have lots of marking to clear this weekend.
4. Last two Thursdays been very tiring for me and today is much much better as I was just doing Zoom for torta. 

Things I'm looking forward to:

1. Making good use of this long weekend for my physical and general well-being, and time for my loved ones. 
2. Next week we are officially crossing into the mid term. Woohoo...

Gratitude Journal for 5th October 2022 (Wednesday)

 

We took a series of group photos

Things I'm grateful for:

1. My close friend of almost 30 years Wen is now on her way to new life in Texas, US. Our farewell dinner yesterday had some hiccups as we changed location from town to Sembawang (friend's place). I was back at MBS for last night of staycation before the change of plans, honestly there was resistance to traveling back and fro but I'm glad I did, simple dinner but no regrets. 
2. Tomorrow is just Children's Day celebration and we're off for the weekend.

Things I'm looking forward to:

1. The long weekend!
2. Just 7 teaching days before we get to EYE, not a thing to look forward to but I'm glad we're winding down for the end of the year soon. 

Gratitude Journal for 3rd October 2022 (Monday)

Nice view during our walk

Calories load again, oh well…

 Things I’m grateful for:

1. It’s already T4W4, and it’s a short week with a long weekend to look forward to.
2. We are still in the middle of our very nice staycation.
3. I managed to get off work earlier as our meeting ended 30min early. 
4. After a nap, I took a nice long walk of 7.3km around the marina barrage and GBTB area. 

Things I’m looking forward to:

1. Our farewell dinner for Wen tomorrow evening.
2. The grand trip of the year 53 days later! 

Gratitude Journal for 2nd October 2022 (Sunday)

 

Our nice walk last night

Things I’m grateful for:

1. We are having a very nice staycation at MBS while the F1 race is going on. This is the first time we get a good view of all the action, including fireworks and drone display as our city view hotel room over look the race site and Padang.
2. I was surprised when we were unpacking and P suddenly mentioned that we are going to be here for 3 nights, checking out on Wednesday. I had packed clothes for just two nights stay but I guess P will be dropping by at our place the next two days as he’s not working and just enjoying the staycation. 
3. Despite the family dinner and the staycation, I managed to finish most of the work I wanted to do this weekend. Yay!

Things I’m looking forward to:

1. Coming weekend is long weekend for us!

Gratitude Journal for 1st October 2022 (Saturday)

 Things I'm grateful for:

• Enjoyed my day today, rented GetGo again to have a nice family dinner, and we finally drove to ECP for a nice walk after dinner. Life is great!
• Met the girls for a really good traditional Korean dinner after work yesterday, its only 1km from my place and they came over for 'house warming' after that. Took many tries to arrange that.
• Having the girls over reignite how good I feel about my cosy home. I almost forgot the 'wow factor' after staying here for more than 9 months.

Things I'm looking forward to:

• The staycation tomorrow! It's our 4xth stay but we have not got tired of it.
• Next week is a very short week at school as I'm only having two proper teaching days. Yay!