2007 so far..

Woah.. its been a month since I've last blogged! Was busy with a few things, namely:-
-Went on the trip as mentioned in previous posts (hopefully can put up some pics soon)
-Slacked around after I was back, enjoyed Xmas with the gang and more slacking
-Went back to school for CCA, and a staff retreat at P.Ubin
-Spent New Year's Day with severe school-reopen-blues!!

And thus far, it's Week 2 of term 1, and I've been busy, busy, busy in school. Some updates about my school year.. Despite anticipation of being a floating (half AM half PM) staff, I was finally slotted into the morning session. Now I know, last year was a real honey-moon year(how I miss those days)!! I'm now adapting to a new department, new CCA and first time experience as a form teacher of a P5 class.

Frankly speaking, I was quite stressed when school was about to start, as there was quite a bit of last minute deployment and I really felt the burden of the workload. It was the first time in many many years when I spent the New Year's eve and day itself at home!

Anyway, mum had went off with my elder sister to visit younger sis at San Francisco. Due to time and financial constraints, I couldn't join them for our yearly family trip. Saw some pics of my family having fun on sis's friendster, hopefully I can join them the next hols..

Seems so fun..



















Meanwhile, I've spent a lot of 'home alone' time during the past one month, and even started to clean up the house at times when I felt that it's getting too messy/unkempt. Before the school days started, I was too lazy to go out for meals and had many many cup noodles for my lunch/dinner. It was quite unhealthy. But mum should be back in a few days' time.. Yeah! Finally I'll have hot dinner waiting for me at home after work. *smile*

Why no pics?

I always try to put in some pictures for my blog entries, as many pple prefer to read blogs that have lots of pics and photos. After scrolling down my blog, I realised that I haven't posted any of my own photos this year.

What happened? First of all, I've taken very few photos this year, even though I've been to places like China, Bali and even Batam (yeah, your eyes are not playing tricks), but I was just quite tired of snapping photos everywhere I go. It might be a good thing though, all of you are getting less nightmares? =D

Anyway, my Panasonic Lumix FX-1 is no longer with me, so without a camera means lesser chance of taking photos too. Three months back, my baby sister decided to migrate to the US to join her bf there, and as a very very nice older sister, I passed some of my unwanted (zen micro mp3 player) and not-so-unwanted stuff (camera) to her.

Upon reaching there, she had had her ROM 1.5 months ago, on the same day as my colleague PL. As she always been the baby of the family, I still find it very amusing that she's already married, even when we received her wedding photos. Just want to wish both couples a very blissful marriage here. =)


I went through some of the old photos and found this one taken when we went Perth two years back, many people feel that we are more alike in terms of looks, as compared to my elder sis.
Anyway, for memory sake, I still feel that I'll need a camera for all those scenery and group photos when I'm in Perth. Therefore, I went to my elder sister.

"Eh, jie.. can lend me your camera? I'm going to Australia."
"Huh? Cannot, I'm flying to London."
"You've been to these places so many times still need to take photos?"
"......"

Even though she boh-chup me after that, I didn't give up. I've decided to use the most well-practiced and effective method.

"Mum? I'm going to Australia but jie don't want to lend me her camera!!"

The next day, after I reached home, my elder sis was already gone but I saw her camera left on my desk. Hehehe.. evil? Sometimes, complaining to the authority does helps.

Just when the hols finally started..

Ah Choo!!! I'm down with flu. Sad huh? I'm hoping to fully recover before I depart for my trip, as it's really terrible to be sick when I'm overseas. I'll feel too sleepy and sickly to enjoy it.

Many of my colleagues had been taking turns to fall sick eversince we started to clear out our mess of papers and books last week, it was super dusty and we were in the air-con staff room doing paperwork most of the times. The virus is super powerful and I thought I'm quite strong as I was feeling quite alright despite sleeping so little everyday (just can't get used to early morning hours).

It started with a bit of headache yesterday, after I rushed back from my medical screening to take a nap. I then decided to give my colleague's wedding dinner a miss as I was too tired to get up. This morning I started to feel a bit of soreness in my throat, so I went to school to get my supplies of lozenges and anti-swelling medicine. I always keep my own stock of all these things as I'm very wary of getting sick with sore throat (just see the picture above, so kiasu right? =P). Then I just kept sneezing and sneezing the whole day..

I came back home feeling so sick and went to sleep right after drinking the chinese herbal tea mum made for me. While I was sleeping, she went out to get the panadol cold relief tablets and sachets of hot remedy for me. So I'm fully armed to combat the flu if it doesn't get any better!

The land of 'Down Under'..

Good news! I've passed the medical screening with no obstacles, except for the fact that I was so sleepy when filling up the form.. I wrote my birthday as 03/03/06. The therapist connecting the ECG nodes to my body was so astonished when she tried to key in my info and the data couldn't be processed. Blur me! (=.=)"""

Anyway, more about the trip.. I'm really quite excited as I'll be going with 3 other closest friends, Shumin, San and Danping! We havent been able to organise any overseas trips on our own this year as all of us are already working and schedule is really hard to meet.

And best of all, it's fully sponsored for teachers! Other than my own shopping money and a few meals over there, it's all paid for by the NPCC welfare training fund.

About the programme, this was sent out through the circulars when we were invited to apply:

NPCC hereby extends an invitation to 20 officers for an overseas
leadership adventure course to Margaret River area, Western Australia on 3
to 10 Dec 2006.

2 This overseas leadership adventure course aims to provide our NPCC
leaders an enhanced insight in the facilitation of team building, character
development, leadership development and an exposure to nature survival. It
will be ideal for our leaders who wish to be exposed to an advanced
learning opportunity that is uniquely customised for NPCC.

3 The programme consists of Abseiling (at least two locations), Caving
(at least two non-tourist caves), Kayaking (e.g. Blackwood River) and
Forest/Beach trekking among others. Accomodation will be in the form of
barrack type sleeping in a campsite with an outdoor overnight camp
scheduled within. As a part of outdoor survival experience,leaders will be
engaged to assist in cooking and cleaning as part of training for the
course. Participants will also be divided into groups and will be engaged
in tasks throughout the course to facilitate training and exposure to
leadership and management. Trained australian facilitators and trainers
will oversee the activities and learning during the course. We also aim to
incorporate a learning journey to a Police Youth Community Club (details to
be confirmed) within this course.


Sounds cool.. haven't been in the outdoors for a long time!

Medical screening

I was informed earlier that we were supposed to do a medical screening before our trip.

We are actually going to check in at the airport for the trip coming Sunday night, but the details of the medical screening only came to us last Friday, so apparently its quite a rush. I quickly called up the clinic as I have to report to school until this Friday, working office hours (Yeah, I know it's school hols..don't ask me why I still gotta work). To my horror, the clinic is fully booked till end Dec on weekends and it's only opened during office hours on weekdays.

I decided to play by ear and see if I can get off early any of these days to do my checkup, if not I shall delay it till Saturday, which is just one day before our trip! San went for it yesterday and her ECG report was abnormal, so ended up she had to clear the screening by going to another specialist. This made me even more nervous, as ten years ago when I was applying to go OBS Lumut, I failed my ECG test as well and the condition forced me to give up the trip. Was quite devastated at that time as I was only in Sec 3 and going overseas was a rare opportunity. Of course, after the heart operation done a few months after that, I'm supposed to be in good working condition again.

This morning, I called up the clinic and its unfriendly office hours didn't leave me with much choice, but to apply for permission to leave the school earlier tomorrow to go for the medical checkup. When I filled up the form to take time off for tmr, I noted that I'll have to go to my RO and P for approval. BUT, to my horror again, my HOD informed me that the new procedure is to go through my VP before they can sign on the forms! The VP is known to reject application for leave, and I was really quite anxious as I'm quite sure she will say 'no' since there's quite a few colleagues on MC, leave, courses and etc lately.. Luckily, after I explained the whole situation to her, she said 'Okay, can go'. Really heng (lucky)!

Now just need to cross my fingers for the medical screening tomorrow..

Online shopping

A colleague is into online shopping lately and I also jumped onto the bandwagon to get some pretty accessories from taiwan. Afterall, a girl can never resist the temptation to keep buying those funky cutie accessories, though we don't have hundred pair of ears for all those earrings.

Online shopping had never appeal to me, and I am always quite skeptical about it as I'll never buy clothes off the rack without trying (unless I'm having shopping spree in Bangkok). Anyway, the taiwanese seller who is aunctioning her accessories in yahoo has really sweet things and I ordered this clover necklace. More because I'm quite attracted by the nice colourful gems rather than the common belief of getting clover to give me good luck. The best part was, the necklace was delivered looking as nice as it was on the website. =)

P/S: Hehe, forgot to add, my collegue has this site where she is helping friends make orders from Taiwan.. take a look if you like exclusive accessories from 'Gong' (Korean show) etc.

Tis the season to be jolly...falalalalalala...

Woke up this morning with people sms-ing me and colleagues discussing it in the office today. We are getting 2.2mths of year-end bonus this year!! Yeah... this is the best news so far as I'll be dead broke by the time I come back from the land of Down Under.

Although this is nothing much compared to the private sector, it should be able to tide me over for the holiday seasons! Yippie!!