Blogger in the making

Megan has a blog! Wahahaha!!! Her school has got an online learning system whereby the teachers can assign homework and you access it online at home. I was trying it out and realised that other than accessing assignments, it even comes equipped with email, a media gallery and a blog!

I explained to her what a blog is and asked if she remembers seeing me always typing non-stop into a particular website with lots of our photos in it. I told her that that is my blog and she enthusiastically replied that she wants her own blog too. I wasted no time in getting her started. We picked out a template together and very soon she's completed with her 1st post. I was so very proud that she chose to write about me in that 1st post of hers! :DDD The blog however can only be viewed by her teachers and peers though.

I think it's really good if I can get her to persevere. It not only helps in her English but I will also understand more about what's going on in that pretty little head of hers. For example, she wrote that 'I am always busy'. I had no inkling I came across like that to her. I had all along been complacently thinking that I have done an okay job as a mum since I spend almost every available waking minute with her. But apparently not in her opinion. There must be something I must be doing wrong. Perhaps I haven't been giving her my 100% attention when I am with her. Well, I can only cross my fingers and hope that it's not too late for me to start paying more attention to her.

I can just see Ken rolling his eyes if I tell him that I intended to get Meg interested in blogging :p As if all the time I invested is not enough and now Meg too?

Proudly presenting ............. Can you make out what she wrote?And now some pics taken over the 1st few days of Chinese New Year. Nothing much except Lo Hei and more Lo Hei.

Reunion dinner at my parent's place. We missed grandma .........

Meg says she can't stand the smoke from the steamboat and hence was isolated to 1 corner :p

We had the soup steamboat and the BBQ steamboat. My favourite!

Cheers for a good year with her sparkling juice and dad's beer.

Told her to smile but look at that mischievous imp

Then we headed off for round 2 of reunion dinner at Ken's parent's place. The kids were hooked on Wii at the cosy corner while the adults relaxed watching TV.

Meg calls it the 'messy thing'

Met the FJC peeps later in the night (morning) to watch the 1.30am show - CJ7 in Tampines Mall.

It hadn't occurred to me till then that Meg's standard of chinese is actually very unacceptable. She couldn't understand most of the movie's dialogue and I had to rattle off the English subtitles to her throughout the show.

1st day of lunar new year - more Lo Hei with Ken's mum's side of the family

Most of the ingredients were on the table rather than on the plate after we were done Lo Hei. This is actually rather mild, there have been years whereby the yu sheng landed in one's hair instead! We joked that it is safer to carry an umbrella with us :p

2nd day of lunar new year - this time Lo Hei with Ken's dad's side of the family. Meg claims that she hates it but yet is always the 1st to rush over to the table with a pair of chopsticks. However as she's the smallest, she invariably gets yu sheng all over her everytime. Haha ........

Brought Jonathan & Meg downstairs to play with bomb bags

Meg's 1st & actually my 1st as well

Awwww ...... they look so sweet together!

Gentle Meg

Jon & sidekick Meg

A big wonderful family - Meg had so much fun that she stayed there for 3 nights straight!

Went to Jason & Jamie's house for some new year gambling before adjourning to watch Ah Long Pte Ltd

As always, we visited Kelly's house on the 3rd day of lunar new year

And then guess where we went that night? More movie that's what! Kung Fu Dunk this time :p

I am disturbed

I just saw this on the news and I couldn't believe such evilness existed. (And this happened right here in Singapore.)

A maid was caught on camera abusing a 2 month old baby. (Go see for yourself on YouTube.) If you had seen the video, your reaction would have been the same as mine. I was full of outraged when I witnessed the footage. You can see the maid hitting the defenceless baby repeatedly and when she lifts the baby up, she didn't bother to cradle the baby's neck. As the baby is unable to support his own neck at this age, you can see the head flop helplessly backwards. I was completely stunned and horrified when I saw that. Another really distressing scene was when the baby was placed in an old-fashioned sarong cradle. The maid would viciously kick it, rock it extremely vigorously and even push it so hard that it swings all over the place. I really fear for the baby when the sarong cradle went swinging all over because it bangs into the surrounding furniture.

As I was watching the video, my hand grabbed at my chest and I mumbled "ouch" over and over again. It was totally heart wrenching to see a little baby being mistreated like that. I can feel my heart drop right to the pits of my stomach by the end of the footage. It was just way too appalling for words. From one mother to another, I can truly feel your pain. It must have been so hard watching your most precious thing getting hurt.

I am just glad that this was discovered early before the baby came to any harm. I hope that the law will mete out the just punishment for this cold-blooded maid. I believe what goes around comes around.

However in all fairness, I must add that this is one of the few isolated cases. Let's not make sweeping statements and generalise that all maids are like that. There are many many domestic helpers out there that renders many a great service to the families they work for. I for one, am grateful for the help I get.

I agree that one can never be too cautious but let's not slight them with mistrust.

Back to school

Andrew had already blogged about this 1 week back but I only managed to get down to blogging about it now. So it's kinda old news but something that meant a great deal to me. In fact, I'll call it one of the highlights of my life.

When I came in 2nd in the mock detailing competition last year, I had seen it as a major achievement - something worthy for my curriculum vitae. But this time a round, I got something even way better that would really boost my CV. I won the MD AWARD! And just when I thought things couldn't have gotten any better than this. They announced that I won a 2nd award :DDD I bagged the MD award for top sales in GP sector & award for top product sales. I had never in my life been so proud of myself. It was pure exhilaration. Even if it was without booze, I would be on a constant high the entire night just from the adrenaline rush.

Admittedly, things haven't been too easy after I got the award. There are many that weren't too happy about it or think that I just got lucky that's all. Sure, I won't deny that luck plays a part in my sales performance. And definitely if it weren't for my predecessor, Sam and fellow colleagues like Ben & Allan for laying such a strong foundation. I would have got nothing. But I am not about to discredit myself either. Being new in the trade, I think I did a pretty dandy job. So like it or not, I am here to stay. I don't give sh*t about what you think about me. I am good at what I do. And for those who didn't think that I am cut out for this from the beginning, I have proven you wrong.

Alright, enough with the heavy stuff. Let's take a look at how much fun I had that night during the company's Dinner & Dance, shall we?

The theme for the night is 'Back To School'. It was a real lucky thing I chanced upon Melissa's D&D (same theme) pics in facebook. I immediately pounced on it and borrowed the costume from her. I want to say a big thank you to Amy as well for helping me source for another 3 more sets of costumes for my colleagues.

I borrowed lots of stuff from Meg that night (all without her knowledge :p)

Pretty babes Diana & Joey. We were getting ready in the hotel room of Sheraton Towers as we had a full day meeting prior to the D&D. We decided to act as cute as we can for the night since we were given a legitimate reason for it. Not much of a chance to do that otherwise :p

You should have seen the guys' faces when we entered the ballroom, it's as if it's their fantasy come true! Japanese school girls. Wahahaha!!!

Angeline is hot grandmama!

Our big boss who's extremely sporting to dress the partBenjamin is a born actorDear Jeannie at the sideIFC???Dallas came up with what the acronyms I.F.C stood for - International F**king College. Hmmmm ....... ingenious :pSweetie Michelle - oh btw, Happy birthday girl!Pretty mummy Amy joined usErycka commented that this looks so 'Hentai' & I have to agree with her! Haha! Check out Shaun's ecstatic face :p Finally gorgeous Dionne arrived & our group is complete!From top left: Lionel, Karen, Jennifer, Taras & CharleneYou'd never guess that he's my boss!We were given the tags by the event company. We had to choose 'prefect' or 'perfect'. Of course, we chose PERFECT!Glenn & GregoryOur MC for the night is Daniel Ong. I love listening to him on 98.7 while driving to work every morning.These babes are just so much fun!With or without?Here's the group from Hogwarts SchoolNot to mention you but even I cringe when I see ladies our age, dress in school uniform acting cute. And even more so when it's aunties like the both of us with daughters already in primary school! Haha ...... sorry I knew I did not have a good enough reason no matter what, to act juvenile :p

Saccharine sweet Selina

Headline: School girls got caught red-handed on smoking breaks!

Shaun is 1 lucky sod I tell ya

Joey got arrowed for the school belle & hunk competition

Talent competition - 881! Kudos to Anna, Amy & Greg for taking part.

Noelle, our mock-detailing champion for this POA. As with tradition, we filled her trophy to the brim with beer & made her drink.

Going up on stage twice for my awards.

Boss & ex-bosses giving me the thumbs up.

Went down to Velvet & Phuture for more drinks after the D&D. Ken thinks that I am nuts bringing my trophy into the club. Yeah I am a poser but I was so proud of the trophy, I can't help myself :p Do you know I had never won a trophy in my entire life! I was never into sports & was always watching Uniz & Erycka receive their trophies in school.

I think Ken prefers me to look nerdy like that

They were so nice to come down & celebrate my win with me

My glasses was hot property

Darling Kok Ying

We rock!

Oh & I forgot to mention that I borrowed Meg's schnauzer toy & brought it with me everywhere I went. Yeah .... even in the club :p And the bag? Courtesy of Erycka :D

My proud moment

Another one please ............

"Can I have a baby sister, mummy?"

My eyes opened wide and thinking that I heard wrongly, asked Megan "Sorry darling, what did you say again?" "Can I have a baby sister?" Meg repeated. Can you imagine the incredulous look I have on my face then? I was completely thrown off track and I was dumbfounded. I had not seen this coming. EVER.

This is news. Meg wants a baby sister? She's made it clear right from the moment she's able to make her wishes known, that she is quite happy staying the only child. And she loathes the presence of little Leto because she's vying with her for our attention.

I regained my composure and affectionately reminded her that she doesn't take to Leto too well nowadays. "No, it's because of Leto that I wanted a baby sister. She's just so cute!" Meg reasoned.

Seeing that it's not working, I tried a different tack. Knowing her distaste for boys, I said, "What if it turns out to be a baby brother instead?" She frowned and thought for a while, then with a look of resignation, sighed and replied "also can lah ......"

Haha! If she consented to this, that must means she's getting desperate :p I was very much amused indeed by her sudden preoccupation to acquire a new sibling. Is this a phase all little girls goes through? Is she getting lonely perhaps? But 1 thing for sure, she's all grown up :) She thinks she's capable of taking care of another little person now.

I gave it to her straight and told her no thank you very much because I had waited a long time for her to grow up. And now that finally she's not as dependent on me anymore and I can get some time to myself, I am not going to put myself through another crying fussing baby again. At which she valiantly offered her services but yet at the same time, cleverly not forgetting to offer the maid's services too. She claimed that I can still do as I please because the maid and her will look after the baby. She went on & on about how she'll be a more responsible person so that I won't have to worry about her and how much she'll help me if we had the baby. She's just so adorable, isn't she?

As we were not allowed into the school on the 1st day of school, there was an open house last Friday and parents were invited to see how their children got on in primary 1. It's not the teachers that's giving us a tour of the school but our children. It's really awesome to see the kids proudly showing off their school to their parents and it proves how well they are adapting as well. I learned that Meg is a group leader and is also in charge of the library corner. The teacher informed that Meg got along very well with her classmates and even at times too talkative! In fact I am really glad to see her more vocal because she's just so shy whenever she goes out with us. I was afraid she would turn out to be the super quiet unsociable kid like I was back then. Here's Meg proudly showing off her locker.

Here's the canteen where's she's discovered the value of $ :p

The class performed for the parents but I was late. She's never let me forget about it up till now.