Life in review

Life in Review (Completed 30 December)

2008's approaching fast, and what better time to do reflections than at the end of the year? I originally wanted to do this post for the year of 2007, but a talk - actually, 2 talks with my long lost friends have made me decide to broaden this scope a little. So here goes.

I'll start with the very first level of education I had - Kindergarten. My kindergarten in the weekdays is basically also my church on Sunday - Chen Li Presbyterian Church. The most prominent educator would definitely have to be Miss Thio, the principal of the Kindergarten during that time.

She never really had any formal lessons with us except for one, which I find to be the most important - Bible study. A short time was set aside every few days for Miss Thio to share with us bible stories, complete with pictures and story books as visual aids for the ones who had attention spans shorter than Chen Teck's.

Her lessons was one that I looked forward to every single time, as she was always such a good storyteller, almost effortlessly engaging us in the story. Miss Thio would definitely be the one I should thank for getting me interested in all the stories of miracles and God's works that we all seem to experience in our everyday lives, yet not able to notice it. She formed the foundation for my faith along with my parents, which got me to practise the simplest yet most important thing - prayer.

I also remember the times when she brought out her puppet (What's its name, Milo or something?), and although she wasn't the leading ventriloquist in the world, what she knew was enough to entertain any child with a simple change in octave.

And not only that. I was chatting with my mother quite recently late into the night, when she suddenly brought up about the issue of me having some stubborn mindsets when I was young. She told me she had talked to Miss Thio about that issue and she did do a few things to try to "remedy" this... potential problem(?). Surprisingly, one of them was the puppet, although I have no idea how that might have worked.

The other teacher that I remember distinctly is my Chinese teacher Lai4 Lao3 Shi1. She wasn't really the average sweet-voiced and gentle teacher, but was stern and not afraid to deal out slightly angry remarks whenever we'd get playful during her lessons. My mother even gave her the nickname of lai4 lao3 hu4 (I hope she doesn't somehow find this blog by accident). Her teaching style was so much different from the rest of the teachers that I got quite alarmed at first, although I always knew that she was only fierce because she wanted us to learn.

Yet when I grew up, whenever she met my mother, she would feel a little sorry and never failed to mention that she was probably the cause of my only achilles heel in my studies at that time, which was Chinese. I do admit that it was due to some of her harshness that I lost interest in that subject even though I felt I took to it quickly early on, but I don't blame her one bit at all.

Nowadays I see her around occasionally in the neighbourhood as she lives nearby, and my mother and I will stop to chat a little. Whenever I see her, I remember the times when we had the lessons and I'd pay extra attention to be careful not to make any mistakes.

Going up a little further, I enter Kong Hwa School without any problem thanks to my sister being a student there already. I was put into Primary 2/3 and there I met the second teacher that was a great help to my education. Mrs Ho was an elderly lady who struck a good balance between being stern and kind.

She, like any other form teacher in primary 1, taught us the basics of all subjects except Chinese, ranging from multiplication to vocabulary. From there my interest in learning seemed to grow, allowing me to claim my one and only 1st in class and model pupil awards at the end of my first primary year.

Kong Hwa was also the school where I met Sièn, a friend who I have known for 8 years already (Damn, just a year shorter than Jun Rong and CK), and used to insist on having his accent typed instead of the normal "e". I always thought of our friendship as something very unexpected, judging by his nationality. He was half french and half chinese. But we did have a common dislike for Chinese lessons then, although we did not have any problem reading or writing it.

I always though of my kind of humour to be very weird, as I change my definition of hilarious depending on whom I happen to be talking to at different times. Yet only around him am I able to just make any joke, and we'd both be breaking out into laughter. We share a common love for CS, and he's the only friend that I have ever bought a gift above $40. If you're reading this, Sièn, you know what it is.

The other dominant part of my life during that age is going to Church. My class was quite large, yet from there, anyone will see that I would have absolutely no problem being in Dunman High - a class of 11, with only 2/3 boys, numbers fluctuating. I spent almost every single one of my Sundays there, save the times when I was sick or overseas, and I still am in the same class as most of the people who I was with all those years ago.

Primary 3 was quite a hard year for me, mainly caused by the decision of GEP. When I first took the test, I really didn't take it seriously by studying, but just did the questions as fast as I liked. Not surprisingly, a majority of my class made it through the second test.

A few weeks after the second test, my teacher came in with a stack of large envelopes and told us that the results for the test were out, and only 9 in our school qualified, with 9 of them coming from our class. I was pretty confident then of getting through, and thankfully I did. Yet after all the elation, I realised that none of my close friends had passed.

It was then when I realised the true gravity of the situation. The choice I would make was clear - friends or education? I certainly would be leaving behind alot of friends, many of them very close to me, yet many people kept asking me to consider carefully, since only 500 get such a chance.

In the end, I went with the line "If God didn't want me to go for this, why would I have passed?". And there we go. One of the biggest decisions of my life, placed in the safest hands possible. And I'll come to realise how important this choice would play in my life.

And so the fateful day came when I stepped into Tao Nan for my first day there. I still remember joining my class lining up outside the LT, and wearing the nametag. I think I still remember seeing a few classmates like Zoe, but can't be sure. Right after that was the flag raising, as I stood there in the crowd, making like any MTV performer. In other words, mouth along.

Each year seems to be so significant in their own way, with the first year starting off a little weirdly, the middle causing me to almost give up and drag my sorry face back to Kong Hwa as a failure and coward, and everything tying up for the year very nicely.

Primary 5 was full of horror, shock, depression and absolutely without the slightest tinge of happiness. I have myself to blame for that, and do not wish to stop2think about that year.

Primary 6, however, was probably one of the most fun years I've had, next to 2007. The cheer competition, Graduation CD (where did I keep mine?????), PSLE, and a ton of the best friends you could possibly get, and last but not least, the third teacher I would definitely have to thank - Mrs Liu.

Mrs Liu-Loh Wee Cheng (This is just in case she googles her name, and thus might find this blog, like a certain dumb blogger) was the form teacher for my class (6J) in my primary 6 year, teaching us English. She was the kind who would use sarcasm without worrying about any of us (especially Muk) feeling offended, and yet we could just tease her back and know that her sense of humour would understand.

As a teacher, she's also one of the best. Her lessons were all that it needed to be - straightforward, clear, fun and engaging. She would stand for no nonsense when it came to homework or files. Every monday would be filing day, and "If you don't bring your files on Monday, heads will roll." Who could forget.

To tell the truth, our class probably never gave her a single worry at all, and things would go very smoothly. Except for the cheering competition. She was trying to get some of us to join the competition for the Primary 6 level, yet none of us would raise our hands. She seemed quite frustrated, and I could really see that she wanted us to join not because of her responsibility as a teacher, but as a friend she could not stand to see us miss out on such an event.

And she cried.

And names flew onto the paper, mine just making it into the last slot. We practised hard for this event, I must say. During the first audition I could safely say we were the most prepared class up there, and were confident of our placing in the finals. I never prepared myself to win, and I was right, since we only placed 3rd. But I was satisfied with it, as I knew we gave our best, and if we lost because someone else could do better, than I do not see any reason to have any regrets.

The other ongoing competition was the Graduation CD, and I somehow turned out to be the IC with He Hao. He was the IT savvy guy, while I was the "loanshark", hounding people for their personal slides. But hey, I got to pick the songs too. And I was definitely made for DHSSC - The songs were Allstar and You'll Be in My Heart. And there we go, another 3rd placing. Yet all this would definitely be possible if not for Mrs Liu, who secretly added all our P1 passport photos into the slide, and did much of the intro.

Mrs Liu was the teacher that fuelled me to work amazingly hard in that year, and I was surprised at how much that hard work could pay off. I felt very very sad when she had to go the same year as us, as she wasn't a teacher in her career, but just posted to TNS as she was working in the MOE. But still, I am thankfully for just that one year when I needed some form of motivation, and miraculously she was there. And I'm still hoping that one day I'll see her again.

Another teacher who played a major part in TNS would be Chen Lao Shi, who was my chinese teacher for Primary 5 and 6. She was the one who could have mood swings and be atrociously biased towards the girls in our class, which was what I thought in primary 5.

Yet I may have nobody to blame except for myself, with my lacklustre results and poor working attitude. When I started to buck up in Primary 6, she seemed to have a different impression of me altogether, and turned out to be one of the nicest teachers I have ever known. Every time I go back to Tao Nan, she's the only teacher that I definitely will meet for some reason.

So yes, leaving TNS was painful, but necessary. I still have so many memories of the 3 GEP classes, and the large diversity of teachers there who may or may not remember me. But that doesn't really matter does it? After all, I still do remember them.

And now another step forward to 2006, DHSVoyage. I have said this many times, and I'll say it again. Our class is plain cynical. We were the nightmare of the SCs (Sorry to Jiayi) - we would not dance, we would not play, we would not speak, we would not cheer. You could threaten to keep us in Michael Jackson's Neverland for a year alone with the psycho himself and we still would not have budged.

My CCA was pretty slack too, as my third lang clashed with one of the two trainings per week, so I really didn't know many people in the school that year. To tell the truth, I guess only less than 40 people in the school knew of my existence then.

So Secondary 1 passed pretty uneventfully except for just one event - the dreaded level camp. I still remember that one night when my mind just went blank. Some of you might remember, during item prep I was just sitting there staring at... nothing. I stopped, not 2think, but because I couldn't think. The past few days just wore me out, and even though I'm supposed to be group leader I just lost any willpower to continue.

Oh well, at least we won. Although I'm still hoping somebody can tell me how.

And finally we reach 2007, one of, if not the most exciting year I've ever been through. Things started off with a bang with DHShine, something that I had prepared for throughout the holidays and greatly looked forward to. Also the first time I knew Li-ba (Xingqi, for those who are confused).

I took 1Lectra (See? I still remember their name) and they were pretty much a great class to have for orientation. They may not have won or anything, but I see potential in them. Who knows, they may just follow in my class' footsteps, so keep up with the cynical attitude guys!

The rest of the first half year was dominated by my CCA, Third Lang and schoolwork, which was pretty much hectic and busy. I would've started on CCA right about here, but then I've already done a post on it, so dig through the archives if needed. I'm planning a Third Lang post for sometime later.

Term 2 was also the time when I met yet another teacher that I want to mention here, Miss Yap!

Miss Yap came in to teach our class LA for a term when Ms Kheng was on maternity leave. We were a little surprised we got a "new" teacher, instead of one that's already teaching in our school. She came off as pretty average at first, but slowly we started to loosen up with each passing lesson.

She never neglected teaching us the essentials, but then again her teaching style also allowed for much freedom. Meaning talking and chatting and making the classroom as noisy as possible, and yet most of us could get an A for LA. Her humour very much eased her into our class not just as a teacher, but as a peer and a friend too. We gave respect whenever respect was due, but she didn't mind us making fun of her either.

Miss Yap's the very special kind of teacher who you'd beg to have at your class chalet. But as expected she came not as a teacher but as just another friend who played mahjong, bridge and many other games through the night with us, never once reminding us about the time. Read more at http://strikenspare.blogspot.com/. (Advertisement. I'll collect payment, thanks to Tong Wei for the idea.)

So a very big thank you to Miss Yap for making LA lessons then so looked forward to, and the term being very enjoyable. I think our class was pretty sad that you didn't continue in teaching as your career, but Law isn't anything to be scoffed at either. All the best for you, and don't ever forget Kiska!

The second half of the year slowly got more interesting, with my personally dissappointing Nationals performance, the elation from our B Boys' achievement, and also, for the first time in my life, I started to work really hard for exams.

I wasn't really happy with my GPA, since I was aiming for something higher, yet I knew that I've put in my utmost effort, which is what's more important. So if my maximum capability is really that score, then I am happy that I've done the most that I could.

Another fun thing to do during the holidays was E4 cluster! Which is something that I'd tried to blog about, but failed pretty badly, and ended up leaving the post as a draft. E4 started out not-so-great, as a lot of the people there seemed to be very different from the people I know, so I had some problems adjusting at first. That was also the time when I was still a very quiet person, and that handicapped my contributions.

I made many friends from that sole event, all from different schools, most of them I did not even imagine I would talk to in the first place. It was during that period of time when I noticed that so many of them felt so comfortable to be around strangers, yet I was still reluctantly treading out of my comfort zone to get to know some of them.

That made me think a little of my usual reaction to somebody I should get to know, which is basically nothing. Why do I always have such a hard time speaking up? Have I been too quiet? Should I try to start changing how I react to a stranger? I thought about all these even for quite some time after E4 ended, and slowly decided to change myself. Hopefully for the better I guess.

E4 also allowed my to get to know some people better: Gillian, Tong Wei, Sumei and Charmaine! Many thanks for not isolating me or something, and helping throughout the project!

Orientation also deserves a seperate post which shall be done in the near future.

So all in all, this post covers some of the most significant areas and people in my life that I've met. Sorry to those who think they deserved to be in this post, but aren't. Just be thick-skinned enough to tag, and I'll definitely have it in my post.

That's all for this very very long post. Happy new year!

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad



What would christmas be without carolling?



After rushing home from the booklet vendor's office which could give Ben Gates a run for his money (Talked about often, hard to find, and has an ancient artefact - The Pentium 3 computer), I quickly bathed and change into formal wear and made my way to church.



I missed most of the practise, but then again, with my kind of voice, there really is no need to even try. I'll just stand at the back and make like any MTV performer. In other words, mouth along.



After a short service, we took no delay in breaking up to our 3 carolling groups. I was in the one led by Andy, and when you have Andy in your group, there is no way that things will be boring. Throw in Yu Xiang, Daniel and Kai Shi, mix well, topped off with the recent 十二月•想 and we have blog post material, hot from the oven.



We went through the procedure on our way to the first stop, and apparently, my voice will have to be heard, whether anybody likes it or probably not, because I'll be reading a scripture. The first house went pretty smoothly, and we all pretty much had fun. Especially with the pronounciation of "Chen?/Cheng? Li Church" and whether to sing 十二月•想.



The journey to the second station started off with us singing random songs, some carols, 十二月•想, and 阳光宅男. After a while, I decided to spread the evils of the thumb guessing game to the people in my group, and it caught on pretty quickly. Although there was one slight problem, where even though it was only 7 people playing, for 10 minutes nobody was able to get a single one correct.



After the second station, we met up with the larger group to share the bus, and set off for our last station, which is probably the highlight of every single year of carolling. Will elaborate more soon. I was a little tired from singing around then, which I once again found to be surprisingly fun. Christmas was the only time of the year when I would wholeheartedly enjoy singing.



It was around then which I decided to go on a mass sms spree, sending early Christmas Grettings. Guess some of you might have recieved, but I have a feeling that some of them weren't sent out because the phone wanted a holiday too and didn't send them properly.



We reached the third stop much earlier than we expected, as most years we'll be there around 11.15, and for a good reason too. Will explain later.



So we went through the usual procedure for carolling, ending things off once again with Feliz Navidad, a general favourite. The next hour was spent chatting and eating, as we waited for the clock to strike 12. There were also random things going on, like doing the dances yet again through the wonders of technology and handphones, and people standing in for Yan Xiang in 精舞门.

Then the "auspicious hour" approached. For those who do not know, Dominic is a 17(?) year old boy in our church, who happens to be a Christmas baby. Our last stop happens to belong to Timothy's grandfather, who does not seem to mind having people thrown into a pool which they happened to have. Which happens to happen every single year.

And so, when you hear the splash from the pool, that marks the end of the annual night of carolling. So it'll be next year, same time, same place, same person. Merry Christmas!

十二月•想

十二月•想

Christmas has always been a part of the year that I look forward too since I was young. It was one of the best days when you could just stay at home for a nice meal, have fun and relax, forgetting your worries for the past year. The carols and soft lights around christmas trees took little time to ease me into a festive mood.

Yet this year, I almost forgot about the yuletide season that I normally anticipate eagerly. The evils of school have dragged me into a pretty deep pit with no plug for the TV for me to see the Holiday Movie Specials. At first.

The past 2 weeks, my daylight hours were pretty much taken up completely by schoolwork, which consisted of Orientation, CCA, and a little, little bit of homework. It was only when the sun set when I went to my church for the only spark of Christmas that I could get.

Sure, the Monday-to-saturday night fever practises wore me out completely every single time. Yet it was surprisingly fun to do every single move, and add a little of your own style to each gesture and transition, knowing that every bit of extra effort contributes to the audience's enjoyment and mine at the same time.I never knew that dancing was my thing, but right now, I could probably keep it up forever.

Reached my church today in the afternoon and started the final rehearsal. Everyone was present, ready, all dressed up and raring to go. It went pretty smoothly, except when Sean/Yan Xiang couldn't "get through" to Lyn's/Qiu Ling's phone, which gave us a good laugh.

After a few hours of waiting, the guests started to arrive and we mingled around. The drinks were pretty great, and so was the atmosphere. It was great to see that so many people who weren't from our church turning up at such a special event. The numbers really took us by surprise (a whopping 100+), and it was no wonder the seats were too little for the audience.

The pre-musical video wasn't so smooth, but after a while it was showtime. Before the performance, during every single practise, we were told that the first song is meant to be enjoyed while we danced. And we did just that. I could feel the euphoria in the air, as we all executed each step with ease.

I felt a little sad when I left the stage for Sound, as it seemed like I was missing out on the fun from 精舞门, which is very very fun to dance to, but it was simply magical watching the rest of the show. We've already went through it so many times, but it felt like a whole new thing during the real performance.

I laughed when Yi Xiang used the lame excuse of his phone to get Kai Shi back. I smiled when she finally accepted to be his girlfriend. I almost cried when Yan Xiang and Qiu Ling broke up. I laughed again at Sherman's bread and kopi joke (even though it's very old after hearing it so many times). I sang along with the finale too.

So I thank the church for giving me my Christmas Spirit back. I thank God for showing me what a small church like ours can do when we work together in His name. I thank Gillian, Sara, Tong Wei, Jia Teck, Kiat Shing, Iris and last but not least Xingqi for coming to this musical (and for the gift too).

Merry Christmas from stopping2think guys. Don't eat hair! =D

SC has been to Cairns. Have you?

SC has been to Cairns. Have you?*updated 15dec*

No prizes for guessing where I found the title. Its 1pm today and I'm risking being late for my 2-7pm dance practise for the musical by blogging about the Cairns trip now. The best thing is I'll have to dance with 4 merry blisters that look far from healing on my feet. May the good Lord give me strength so that I may dance for him =D


Nothing to do on 22 December? Why not come over and watch a musical at my church? I'll even have to dance -.- so you know what a rare occasion this is. Ask me if interested.


This will probably be my longest blogpost so far, so I'll probably take some time to complete sometime tonight/tomorrow. Now, before time starts running any later, let's get started!


Day 1 - Are we there yet?

I went to the airport with my family at around 5 if I remember correctly, and saw a few SCs at the foodcourt as well. It was supposed to be my family waiting for me to eat, but ended up the other way round since I was kind of full. So it was just waiting until all have gathered, people got their boarding passes and we all said quick goodbyes. Nobody shed any tears, at least I didn't see any.

Switched seats with Sara and ended up with a stranger sitting beside me. Oh well, at least I got the aisle seat, and the lady was pretty nice. The plane trip was booooooring and slow as always, most of the entertainment coming from staring blankly on the tiny bite-sized screen that also seemed to be looking straight back.

We were all glad to get out of the plane and finally stretch our legs, before getting on yet again another transit flight to Cairns from Sydney. Everyone suddenly somehow formed groups and the omni-present poker cards finally emerged from various bags. I only remember playing a few games, like Tong Wei's MRT station card game, Cheat and Idiot. So time decided to give us a break and moved a little faster than usual, allowing us to board the plane before we started to get realllllly restless.

I slept on the second flight through most of the way, and the moment we passed the Customs at Cairns, guess who/what greeted us? I'll give you a clue. What does a camera in DHS usually hang in front of?

Mr Yeo! A few were kind of surprised, because he told some people that he couldn't get a ticket, but that seems like a very Mr Yeo thing to do. Oh well. Now we know that we'll definitely have pictures.

The second thing that greeted us wasn't a "who", but a "what". When we stepped out of the Airport, people did not hestitate to remove their jackets. It was hot enough to fry a whole supermarket warehouse, let alone a group of SCs. I quickly loaded my bag into the coach's luggage compartment and rush up into the coach to feel the relieving... Wait. Sir, are you sure the air-conditioning is on? Or is that piece of plastic up there just for fun? I couldn't feel a single wheeze of pathetic air from the aircon in the bus.

Tolerance is a virtue (I think), so I tried to ignore the fact that we were in a 30 degree environment. Cheng Qian Confucius say: 心静自然凉。On the way, auntie Angela was telling us that we were staying "not in a hotel, but a ho-stel, S for Simple." If simple meant no aircon, I swore I would've murdered somebody on the bus by then.

Fortunately (for both me and potential victims), the bus ride was short and we soon found the crucial piece of metal attached on the wall in our room.

-will be continued ASAP after my blisters get worse from 5 hours of dancing







-make that 7


So we started to UNPACK - Un-Nicely Pile All Carried (insert synonym of luggage starting with K. Kargo?)

After we explored the hostel and confirmed our worst fears that we could do nothing more than swim in the pool for entertainment, it was off the the one and only shopping centre that we went to for lunch - Cairns Central! A large group of us went to get Subway for lunch because we wanted to walk around and have a look.

Soon after, we assembled and started a small amazing race, breaking up into groups of three. We actually had a original group of 6, so we decided to just simply walked together, and laughed at the people running ahead to the first stop. It was a 10 minute stroll to the lagoon swimming pool, which was really really cool. In more ways than one.

I got wet after getting the rock out from the pool and recieved our next clue. We waited for the other group once again before spending a grand total of 30 minutes before getting to the next stop, which happened to be a long 600m approx away. How tiring.

The next one was the killer. We asked a man where the anchor (which was what we were supposed to find). He turned us the directly opposite way and wasted about another 30 minutes, and even after we turned back, we overshot and wasted another total of 30 minutes before finally finding it. Picture will be uploaded ASAP to show how tired we were.

Our group was late for the Reef Teach talk because we spent too much time walking in wrong directions. It was pretty okay, but nothing special so I'll just stop wasting time.


Day 2 - Jack, I'm flying!

We woke up quite early the next day to a simple breakfast of cereal and juice, as we wanted to avoid being sea-sick. Yes, we went out to sea. Yes, it was for snorkelling. No, the boat is not named Titanic.

The boat ride was soooooo fun. Almost all of us went out on the front deck and the sea breeze never felt so good. A sunburn wouldn't stop any of us from staying outside to feel the sky, sun and sea. Pictures were, once again, taken in excess. The ride ended to our slight dismay, but we were about to get an experience for life.

We were given some tips for snorkelling, and fitted with gear. I think I was the most mafan person there, because the flippers were just too small. But anyway, it wasn't long before we jumped into the ocean and...

Wow.

I looked below and was so shocked I almost breathed through my nose instead of my mouth. The ocean was so deep and you could see the fishes all right in front of you, all within arm's reach. The next few hours went by easily, marvelling at the sights that the reef had to provide, what with giant Parrotfish, "nemos" and reef sharks, along with a rainbow array of corals that all looked different yet were bunched so tightly you couldn't tell the difference.

The only reason people wanted to leave was because alot of us were getting seasick (Lucky me. I was safe.) I was kind of tired on the way back, so I plugged into my phone and slept through the whole thing back. The only thing that I saw was 4 salted fishes lying on the front of the boat.

-to be continued yet again





-like right about now

If I remember correctly, we returned to the Night Markets yet again, and had the Fish & Chips there for our dinner. It was surprisingly disappointing, with even the Chips having more taste than the fish itself. You could see most of us going back to the stall to get more sauce for the bland fish.

I was asking Jia Teck whether he wanted to go buy some drinks and food from Woolworths (Try saying that 5 times quickly), which is a supermarket, nearby. I waited for him to finish up his food and we went there to get a few bottles of drinks and the famed TimTams!

Day 3 - Come out, we won't eat you.

We woke up a little later this day, since the places we were going weren't as far as the Great Barrier Reef. It was a bus ride to Kuranda and an hour plus of souvenier shopping. It was quite a nice place to be at, with a relaxed, homey kind of feel to the place. That feeling made you feel just perfectly comfortable to be there. Except for the price of drinks.

I didn't pick much up, and mostly window-shopped through the whole thing. I still remember some things from that place, like how we thought there was actually a petting zoo, the fake snake box, the funny funny statue that we took so many photos with, and how my hand was strangely just as smooth as Ms Yeo's after she went do the free hand scrub.

We met up later at the meeting place and our first stop was the koala park. It's kind of weird though, since I only saw koalas once, but anyway. The crocodiles weren't all that special, since they're seen in almost every zoo. The snake cage was quite cool, seeing as to how they actually are allowed to climb anywhere, and they actually were no less than 1 metre away from us, for those who remember the snake who went on top of the small display cage.

We were also quite lucky as the koalas happened to be awake for a short moment when we were there, allowing for some photos of them while they were moving. I make it sound like a big thing, but hey, they're only awake three hours a day. But still, the most amazing, enchanted (no, I didn't pick this word on purpose) experience there was the wallabies.

There was an area where you were allowed to enter and had an unlimited supply of wallaby food from a bucket, and you just fed them if you like. I took a handful, crawled to a spot where there were 20 wallabies at least crowding up to hide in the shade, and reached out. Then I waited. Waited. Waited. Ignored the smell. Waited. Waited. I was a little tired, but refused to give up. It was after some time when one sleepy little wallaby hopped over and curiously sniffed at my hand, before slowly chewing them up piece by piece (The food, not my hand). I was delighted, and let him continue, patting him happily.

That moment was good enough for me, but for Jia Teck, it was a whole new life altogether. He was one of the first to feed the wallabies, and picked one young one to start with. I was watching him earlier, but decided to try it out for myself. After some time when I returned, I found Jia Teck sitting right beside the wallaby, feeding 2 at the same time. He looked just like them.

After that, we went to some river cruise cum tour on a boat, which was frankly boring, with most of us sleeping on the way back. The only interesting part was how much the driver looked like Sean Connery, and boy was he proud of it.

The lunch at the cafe was okay, and I watched as Iris and Shuqi got their comical caricature done. Come to think of it, I should have gotten one for myself too. It looked really cool when it was completed. Oh well.

The next stop after that was the Skyrail. This was probably the craziest part of the day. It started with them asking us to split into groups of 6 for each cable car. Gillian, Sara, Tong Wei, Jia Teck and me were talking to each other about the Aussie slang book (heh heh) and we formed a group of 5. We needed one adult (I think) and we happened to be actually considered children and paid half price. So we got Xingqi to be our "adult" for the ride.

This is where the fun starts. Xingqi was mocking at how we were considered Children while he's already a full grown Adult, while we fought back saying that we only had to pay half the price (Although all costs were covered by the tour, but who cares). It was after a short while when we started calling Xingqi our father, who happened to be taking his 5 children out to the Skyrail.

Bam, and there you have it. A family of 6 born in a skyrail just like that. Xingqi the father, Gillian the oldest, followed by me, Tong Wei, Sara then our youngest sister/brother, Jia Teck. The rest of the ride was simply crazy fun as we screamed at every interval when the Skyrail made loud noises, took a few family group photos, and coming up with a failure of a ghost story.

I guess we all felt quite sad (well not really) about the ride ending, but were rewarded with a spectacular view of Cairns as we descended towards the bottom. When we landed, the attendant there told us to smile as there was a camera that will take a picture of us in the Cable Car. Thus, at a price of $10 each, our true blue official 全家福 was printed born.

-stopping here again on 15 dec 10:39

Google.

Google.

Let me ask all of you - whoever uses google as their primary search engine please raise up your hand. Hmm. Not bad, I see quite a handful (Well not really. But play along.) So Google is dominating the internet searches and shows no sign of slowing down. Even Yahoo loses its appeal because the refuse to remove the tons of ads and useless information they have on their homepage. That's why I was attracted to the quick and simple frontpage of Google.

By now you should be asking why I'm talking about Google so much (Like I said, play along.) Well, I've been lacking inspiration of what to write for a few days, but the answer soon came to mind some time when I was staring blankly at the computer. Yes, I'm going to try what everybody does when no one else is looking - Google myself.

Best of all, you get to see what I find.


Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Lee

Trust wikipedia to have every single thing. For those who are lazy to move their mouse over to click and see for yourself what I was featured for, here's the analysis. Sometime (just a little over 200 years) ago I was a professor at Cambridge, and apparently a linguist, as I first specialised in Arabic, then Hebrew. I also wrote a few books, and even created the first dictionary for the Maori (Yes. The girl who couldn't stay away from whales.) language.

This one's pretty cool, since I always preferred language to other kinds of topics (EXCEPT if its HCL), wanted to be a professor for some random topic, and loved to write, but only on fiction, unlike this guy. But it's pretty cool. Imagine breaking the ice with the line, "Hey, did you see me on Wikipedia?"



Photography
http://www.samuellee.net/

Man, this guy has, like, zero creativity. And he calls himself a photographer. Who the hell uses his own name for a website? I mean, I came up with stopping2think. Who cares if I like good photography? I wouldn't be caught dead using my name for a URL. Who on earth would go "Come to my website - it's just my full name"? I'm calling the police and bringing him in for Defamatory Actions.



I have no idea what to put here.
http://rsqubf.fortunecity.net/documents/reform/1976.html

I really would prefer not to talk about this one. From a decent professor to a creativity failure and now this. I'd better find something nicer soon, or there may be boycotts of my blog.


But that'll have to be another day =D. Packing for my trip. Hasta la vista Singapore, I'll be back on the 8th, hopefully with a memory card full of snapshot memories.