woof & meow

a quick photo update - he seems at ease with both cats and dogs, mingling well with all the neighbourhood felines and canines wherever we go. at times, he's even walked a neighbour's tiny chihuahua-lookalike dog. The lil man's growing up too quickly! He may be a tad shorter than many of his peers, but in terms of speech and logic, this lil fella is waaaay off the mark. he holds entire

Nursery Songs & Poems...

小小萤火虫,飞到西飞到东,这边亮,那边亮,好像许多小灯笼...(Little Fireflies)Since he was a babe, we've been playing Chinese nursery songs to Val so he's pretty good with them. It makes me so happy to hear him sing with Grandma - and even funnier, when he makes up lyrics along the way. He mashes up lyrics to form his own songs which are so entertaining. I have caught some on video, but never have had time to scribble them

How would you like to die?

Last Friday I was at the Church of the Holy Spirit for the second time of my life. The first was several years ago at J & G's wedding; this time was for a funeral mass for another friend, also by the initial J. Attending the mass got me thinking of so many issues and made me reflect a lot on dying (once again). I looked on in envy seeing the number of people who attended J's funeral. Instead of

the sound of small feet

pitter patter......pitter patter......*giggle*OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhh..... These are the sounds that I hear when I am cloistered in the study room working away or studying during the day. Val doesn't know I'm at home - yes, I'm pretty much a fugitive in my own home - because if he did, i wouldn't be allowed to do my work or to study. And so, it's always a well-coordinated scheme

Vanity Fair?

Hee.. shameless blowing of the trumpet here! I love this picture from our latest issue... Makes me wish we had subjects like this all the time! Page 35 FYI.

July issue of Challenge!

Open publication - Free publishing - More singaporeAnother one in the bag!

Timor retrospect

I have been asked to give a talk this coming Saturday about my time in Timor and I am now just downloading pictures from my Flickr site and refreshing my memory (especially of places with exotic names). Just posting some pictures (some of them repeated on this blog) as a way to help myself prepare for the talk... (note: do bear in mind, these pics are at least 3 years old so I m not vouching to

tech dino recommends: edu apps for your kid

So today, we had a photo shoot with babes and mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone, PSP, etc. I wasn't there, cos I was swotting from home, cleaning up stories as a responsible editor should be doing. I called to check on the shoot and was told that there was a 4-year-old who wouldn't tear his eyes away from his iPod Touch the entire time. Scarrieeee.... But to set things in perspective. This

Tech Dino: This is why I think children's book apps rock

I went to the Book Fair at Suntec today and spotted a familiar book, "The Smelly Sprout" by Alan Plenderleith. You see, I've had the free version of this story book on my iPhone for about 5 months now. Val was not interested in it at all initially so i never bothered buying the full version. But last week, he began to become interested and has been asking to read the "Smeggy Spout" every night.

mirroring

Val's approaching his 2.5 year next weekend and i think now, more than ever, it is becoming very clear how much impact we, adults, have him. He's begun to mirror our actions more obviously, and especially the way we speak, often times with great deliberation, almost like a reproach. he can imitate his teachers pretty well at school - from Teacher V's "angry" pouting expression, to the way class