My Cake My Family Relative's (Dad side) Relative's (Mum's side) Cousins More Cousins Aunties and Uncles (literally) 4 Generations
Ratatouille is scheduled to launch only on 30th but the sneak preview starts today, therefore watched it first hand today with Wilson, SM and Zongxiang. Much before the movie was launched, the trailer of the movie had already caused quite anticipation and thankfully the movie did not disappoint me. No doubt that the rat is cute and a unique story line as the trailer shows. However it’s the plot of the story and the emotions it bring out during the movie which makes it a movie definitely worth watching. In fact I was quite touched towards the end of the movie. That’s all for the review as I do not want to reveal any spoilers as most people have not gotten to watch the movie yet.
After a long wait of more than 2 years plus once again I step back into school for lecture, embarking onto the last phase of my academic life. A bit lost and nervous as looking at the email the prof sent us realised that nobody I knew was in the same class, no ex-classmates nor campmates, so it's a totally new start in networking.
My very first lesson in SMU was financial accounting, a subject which I had a slight head-start in as I sort of studied it myself when I was doing the accounts for Nomadic Tech. The prof today was Prof Wang who was from China and quite an interesting guy. At the very start of the lesson he was emphasizing on how different he is and how different SMU students are and he began by showing us some slides of funny pictures and encouraged us to find a boy/girl friend too.
Soon started lessons proper and what Prof Wang mentioned about SMU students are different turned out to be rather true. Firstly the way we had school is different; we had seminars instead of separate lectures and tutorials. This also means no ponning of lectures and sleeping during lectures. Next, instead of going word by word through textbooks and lecture slides, we spent of of the lesson time on a case study, leaving the textbooks and slides to read in our own time. Finally, SMU promotes discussion and unlike in secondary schools and junior college it's never quiet during Q&A session. Might be due to the fact that marks are awarded for participation but since most of the comments or questions raised were meaningful perhaps SMU students were just more out-spoken and such an environment spurs me on to be more extrovert as well. By the end of the lessons made a few new friends and they were year 2 students sitting in to prepare themselves for bidding. Saw Huifen from my secondary school class and spoke to her during the break and sadly she sort of forgotten me but that's expected as back then we were both quiet and shy students who rarely speak much.
Apart from training to be more outspoken, there's still much to prepare for academic life in SMU. Looking at the course outline for the course I had today, there's weekly quiz, several group oral presentations and final exam and with 4 modules it seems like uni life isn't that slack after all.
On a side note, I've managed to change the settings and appearance of my windows themes and now it looks like a Mac OS now. Look at the printscreen, cool right?
Had another Ex-Green Team outing today at Sentosa and I was intending to go there to tan and become taller, darker and more handsome. However, by the end of the day my suntan lotion was left untouched in my bag and there was no change to my skin colour at all. It was a sunless Sentosa outing and actually it was drizzling with strong wind for most of the time we spent there.
We were supposed to met up at 12noon but as some of us were late (I'm one of them) plus we had lunch before we proceeded to Sentosa, we left for Sentosa only at around 2pm. A bit wasted as during the time we were having lunch at Carl's Junior the sun was actually quite strong and just the perfect weather for tanning. However once we proceeded to the Sentosa Express station the sky was covered fully with dark clouds.Once we reached Siloso Beach the wind was blowing super heavily but we the guys proceeded to play beach volleyball and we were later joined by the girls soon. Carried on with captain's ball and we continued to play and have fun even though it started to drizzle then. Sentosa is the place the enjoy the sun, the sand and the sea. Rather unfortunate that we were unable to enjoy the sun, yet had fun on the sand but how could we forget the sea? Went for a swim or rather just playing in the sea although most of the time we were distracted by the couple which were kissing non-stop since we were playing volleyball on the beach. Anyway started off with the usual monkey game and I had forgotten for what reason Caelan, Lewis and me were starting to whack each other with the volleyball. After which we improvised the dodgeball game into a sea version of dodgeball which turned out to be quite fun in the end. In the end left Sentosa for dinner at Vivocity and that marks the end of the sunless Sentosa outing. Hopefully the next time we go back to sentosa it will be a sunny day and possibly can go kayaking.
On the way to Sentosa
On a sidenote, had some fun yesterday as well. Yesterday was SMU convocation day where all the freshies gathered in the Suntec Convention Centre. Basically just talks and awesome performance. Did not took any photos as I was seating too far back and a bit wasted as the ceremony itself was rather grand. Nevertheless, after the convocation met up with ZX, SM, Wilson and special guest Chin Keat for movie and dinner as CK is leaving to study in Chinaland soon. Watched Bourne Ultimatum and was rather disappointed and I actually dozed off for a while at the beginning of the movie. Not only me, everyone except CK did dozed off for a while during the movie. There's just too much talking in the beginning and during all the action scenes, the camera angle was so shaky that I just feel like sleeping watching it. After that had dinner at Manhatten's and unfortunately we failed to rip off CK to treat us to lobster platters. Once again it's a sumptuous dinner and it will be a long long time before we can see CK again.
Thorn Among the Roses
The Guys and Me
After the Dinner
Before and China Immersion
Went for the floorball clinic in school today to learn the sports proper and to explore my CCA options. We were split into random groups called Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and Lewis happened to be in the same group as me in Autumn.
Started off with learning the basics such as holding the stick, dribbling, passing and finally shooting. After learning all the foundations we began to play matches between the four teams and that's when we realised whatever we learnt earlier on during the foundation lesson does not really apply in a real match. For amateurs like me only one rule applies, which is 'just whack' as once your opponents charge at you, you would not have time to think of the strokes and everything will go by instinct. Although this is not the first time I played floorball still find it very tiring, especially as the air in the sports hall seems much dryer than the outside air. Moreover I'm not a sprinter at all yet the game require the players to run forth and back many many times throughout the games and somehow once I entered the court I can't stop myself from running all over even though I did not have many touches of the ball. Even though each game lasted only 5mins and we can have substitutions so basically I only played around 2mins in each of the 3games but it was more than sufficient for me to shag out. Did not manage to score any today and actually only manage to get a shot on goal today. Most of the time I'm clearing the ball up or pressurizing opponents so did not support that attack too much. I felt that I got a bit physically in the 2nd and 3rd game pushing my body weight around wrestling for the ball but hope nobody got hurt other than the one ball which I stepped on accidentally and squashed it during the game. At the end of the clinic both our guys and girls team finished with 2wins and 1lost each and got the overall champion for the day and each of us got a voucher from 4 seasons. Woohoo!
After the clinic stayed back to play just for fun and after the first recre game I was too shag to run anymore and decided to just be the keeper and slack. Made a few good saves which I'm quite proud of especially one made with the stick. After all I was keeper trained in KPG and it's quite similar except that the ball is much smaller. Hope that if I really joined floorball I will not be condemned to be the keeper though it seems to be my natural position because I want to run!!
Just completed my 1 Star Kayaking course yesterday at Changi Water Venture, survived it and came back tall, dark and handsome (please dun flame again). Suffered from some bruises on my legs which I do not know how I got them and bodyache all over when I woke up today. The course was not that tiring though, it's just that most of the time I use brute force and not that much technique which resulted in all the straining.Started off the first day with some basic theories on the kayak and soon after entered the sea to try out the different strokes. Before that did the 50m swimming test, which I practised the day before as I'm a real bad swimmer. Realised that I think to much of it, because we were swimming parallel to the shore in shallow water and everyone will be able to swim with floatation jacket on. Went on to all the capsize drill, basic strokes and all were fine except initially I was rather unbalanced. The only problem came during the part where we learn to embark onto the kayak without support. Either my legs are floating in front of me, or I'll fall off the kayak while climbing to the seat and at times capsizing the kayak as I fall off. Tried a total of around 10 times before I finally manage to get into the kayak. Spent the whole afternoon kayaking around practising all the strokes and playing catching using kayak as well.
On the second day focused more on the rescuing techniques so plenty of chances to capsize until I do not feel anything about capsizing anymore. Continued the day with some other technique and games and and we covered the entire syllabus rather early. Therefore the instructors gave us a 'sneak preview' of what we will learn in the 2-star course and I got a bit tempted by the skills that I can learn as well as the fact with the 2-star can kayak out of the pathetic small rectangular boundary. Finally at the end of the day received my 1 Star Cert which gives me the license to rent kayak in the future. Yeah!!
The 'SMU Jump'
License to Kayak
This 'Mahjong Camp' isn't an official camp organised by SMU, it's just a gathering of my sports group where some of us played 2 days of Mahjong at Sheryl's place, of course with some exciting activities in between. It started off with a K-Box session at Marina Square. Our group is unique in the sense that we do not really like to sit down quietly to sing but rather we like to stand on the sofa to sing all the 'high' songs. It doesn't matter even if most of us are already down with sore throat before the session and we still shout, let loose and sing. Guess it's just a matter of time K-Box will either blacklist us or ban people from standing up on sofa.
Went to Bugis next as Chelsea needed to buy a new phone while I went to buy toto (disclaimer: I did not strike so do not ask me for treat) Had dinner at the teenage cafe at Bugis village before heading down to Sheryl's new house. It's a very well designed house with all the cool decorations and we had fun playing the magnetic dart in her room and I'm proud to say I'm the first to hit the bull's eye. After which we went to her 'spare house' to start our Mahjong session, so Eugene, Chelsea, Pei Ling and me started to play Mahjong first. Wee Xiang, Xin Yi and the facis soon joined us and they had a separate cards and drinking session. Towards the end Eugene got high by alcohol and started to blabber in Indian accent and doing funny stuff like wearing Chelsea's dangling earring. Played for one round which lasted 5 hours and people got wasted either due to fatigue or alcohol and they got a first glimpse of my trademark 'shivering hands' during mahjong.
Woke up the next day and went back to school for the academic talk but before that had a decent lunch at Ajisen's. Fortunately the talk was not as long as we originally expected but during the talk we realised that SMU did not manage to escape from the China invasion as well and Singaporeans seems to be a minority in Business. As it's a Tuesday went with a few of the girls to Gelare at Holland V for waffles and after which we decided to continue our Mahjong session but there was only Sheryl, Chelsea and me so we tried frantically to look for a fourth player. After numerous attempts from us I managed to get Stan to join us.
Therefore we went back to Sheryl's house in the evening to play another round of Mahjong. This time round it's a more normal game of Mahjong without alcohol or much fatigue. Luck was on my side that night and I manage to make a decent profit out of Mahjong, again with my trademark 'shivering hands' and I was pressed for a lunch treat the next day. I did treat Chelsea to Cartel the next day and fortunately still have some leftover profits and hope Sheryl forget about the treat.
Went to Changi Water Venture to sign up for the 1-Star Kayak course for Caelan, Huimin and myself. Too bad William pulled out last minute but there's still time for him to change his mind in the next few days. Guess it gonna be a fun course where I can become tall, dark and handsome and sporty after the 2-day course. Just worried that we might be a bit over-aged for the course as most people would have gotten their 1-star during their secondary school days but who cares as long as we are still young at heart.
After the registration walked to a nearby Singapore Pools outlet to buy 4D. I'm not a regular 4D punter and buy only when I have some strong feeling or inspiration and today just happen to be the day. I dreamt last night that I strike 4D starters through i-bet and after I woke up I still remembered the number so bought I-Bet for '2620' as well as 2 other numbers which I got 'inspired'. Checked the results and I was quite stunned as everything happened exactly as in my dream, 2026 came out in the starters.Before anyone thinks of asking for a treat from me, look closely at the ticket. 2620 is sold out! How close could I be to strike 4D. Never mind, I shall try harder for toto tomorow.
The 'Winning' Ticket
Anyway met up with Bin after her 2 star course at Pasir Ris park. Intended to eat at the Fisherman Village (the hawker side not the restaurant) and realised that all left of Fisherman Village was the few restaurants. Last time there was stalls selling BBQ seafood, satay, fried oyster, etc but they seemed to have disappeared. So ops, Bin turned grumpy and we went to Fish and Co for dinner instead. Shared a seafood platter and a new york fish & chip and what a fulfilling week I have in terms of good food. That meal marks the end of the good food week for me and next week shall be declared keep fit week to shed all the fats I accumulated throughout this week.
This is the week where I put aside all my health consciousness and indulge myself in good food almost everyday. There goes my 6-packs and all the weight loss program and I shall refrain from standing on the weighing machine for fear of a hike in mass. Really should have launched haochidedifang.blogspot.com when I first thought of the idea and I would have plenty of posts by now. Guess I should just enjoy what I can now as after entering university and without income, chances to have good food will be few and far between. Here's the summary of what I've eaten throughout the week.
Monday: Modesto's
Had already mentioned in the previous post so shall not say too much on it again. Pizzas, pastas and good ambiance sum it all.
Tuesday: Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao
Met up with Bin and Deming to buy Roger's birthday present and went to Taka's branch of CJ La Mian Xiao Long Bao for dinner. However felt that the quality of the food in this outlet is not that good as the one I had in Scott's Road, Suntec or Jurong Point. The pork ribs had shrunk, the soup is not that 辛福 as I wanted it to be and the Xiao Long Bao is not that juicy. Sort of spoilt my wonderful image of it. Hope the quality still stays in other branches.
Wednesday: Ben and Jerry's
Met up with my FTB group for dinner at MOS burger followed by the much awaited Ben and Jerry's ice cream treat by Daren. Ordered the biggest ice-cream they offer which I can't remember the name but it's called monster something and it cost $88. It contains 20scoops of ice-cream, lots of banana, whipped cream, brownie, sherbet and cookies (how sinful). As we do not want all the ice-cream to melt before we finished it we had it served in 2 portions of 10 scoops each. After eating it felt that their ice cream should be eaten in single scoops instead. As
initially everything is covered by whipped cream we do not really know what flavors are we eating and towards the end everything tasted the same. Nevertheless it's the company which counts for such gathering.
Thursday: Bukit Timah Hawker Center
Went there to celebrate LBS's birthday. Not exactly the place you will think of for birthday celebrations but it's a totally different experience. Thinking of it, it's the first time I see people sing birthday song and cut birthday cake in a Hawker Center. Had our usual food like stingrays, sotong, fried oyster, etc and not forgetting the official drink Tiger Beer as Gary is around. After that proceeded on to KAP Mac for McFlurry as the famous ice cream shop in Serene Centre is closed for the day. Chatted all the way till 2am plus when Mac closed (only realised that 24hr is only for drive thru)
Friday: Rest
No real good food for the day.
Saturday: Lai Huat Belachan Fish (Jalan Besar)
Dad got a sudden urge for the Belachan fish so he brought me and mum to this coffeeshop in Jalan Besar (just beside the stadium) for it. Guess he saw it on some food show and got tempted by it. In the end had the Belachan fish, tou fu prawns and kangkong and it proved to be a bit too much for the three of us as we were so full after the dinner.
