Kite flying and the state of Zen

*correction: all photos thanks to auntie May's hubba Ian!!

Was a strange outing cos the kite flying took all of 5 minutes, before the strings got majorly tangled up, no thanks to Mr Valente SmellyBottom Lay! He had joy, oh boy, getting me in a tizzy, as i struggled to stop the mess from worsening. But the boy was like in the cartoons, running circles round my ankles, creating a kite chaos out there. very malu i tell you. While YM sat down on the grass with vera laughing at the escapade, Ian was kindly helping me to sort out the mess. In the end, we had to resort to distracting val - getting him to run far away - in order for one adult to have the time to disentangle the kites! Thanks to Ian, we ended up with three clumps of kites with a bunch horribly still in knots. Last night, i finally had the peace and quiet, after the boy had fallen asleep, to slowly pick through the strings. I had fallen asleep with him and woken up at 12midnight to face this task.

In the still of the night, the knotty problem became a good opportunity to meditate upon my current state of affairs. I got all contemplative - how can you not! All those knots, so complicated, yet they were only created by simple twists - no one actually went to great lengths to mess them up - but yet they just seem so indomitable if you are in a hurry to sort them out.

But when it's quiet, when time kinda stood still, when the mind's at peace, the problem didn't seem so daunting. Complex yet totally can be fixed.

Slowly, by observing the way the strands were twisted, and by quietening my heart, I was able to tease the kites in and out, loop-a-loop, and before long, had restored the entire string of kites to their complete, unentangled state.

I think I had a brief encounter with Zen last night. :-)

**Additional pix - Val caught in the act!

@Henderson Waves

A couple of good friends brought Val and I to Henderson Waves for a nice Sunday afternoon walk (or lots of running in Val's case). It was hilarious cos he was so thrilled racing down the downhill slope of the bridge while I was busy running ahead of him (facing him!) fearful that he would go kersplatz on his face. He really did fall a number of times which was okay, as long as he didn't roll down the slope - - my biggest paranoia! But yeah, a simple bridge like that gave him a good hour of entertainment - running up and down, splaying on the nice wooden flooring, peering through the wired fencing, hunting for "Totoro" in the nooks and crannies (have i mentioned that he is currently obsessed with Miyazaki's Totoro?). We ended the walk with slurpy chocolate chip ice cream from a hawker. :-) Nice. I really love such active outings and thank SY and CW for spending their afternoon with us. Arigato! Mahalo!

Who Would Want a Child Like That

Deeply touched by this blog link on my oldest friend (26 years we have known each other!)YM's blog site (www.mylittlevera.blogspot.com) and so i am reBlogging it here.

http://severedisabilitykid.blogspot.com/2010/01/who-would-want-child-like-that.html

We heart Mandarin

Increasingly, we have been getting all sorts of nice compliments from people - taxi drivers, strangers, friends, relatives, etc - who are pleasantly surprised by how fluent Val is in Mandarin. We are thankful for his current propensity to yammer away in Mandarin, and hope that this affinity to his mother tongue will help stir up interest in his heritage as he grows older.

My mom was a Chinese language teacher so I never had much problem speaking or studying it in school - but i was never stellar at it. In fact, i only scored an A2 for CL2 and B3 (gasp*) for CL1. but my mom was always cool about it. In fact, i believe her greater worry back then was that my sister and I would not pick up English properly since she and my dad were Chinese-educated. So she went through much pain (and drama) to get my sis and I transferred from Red Swastika to Haig Girls when we were about 8 years old. She said that she pulled all kinds of strings then to persuade Mrs Bandara to get my sister into the school, then when it came to my turn, she turned on the emotional tap by dressing me up in my sis' oversized pinafores (Haig Girls' uniform) and got me to see the principal. That emo-card certainly trumped Mrs Bandara's resolve not to admit another student. So voila! I entered Haig Girls in Primary 2.

School was really a shock for me then cos I could hardly string a sentence in English together. I only knew how to write my name in English. For years i had "please see me" scribbled on all my English essays for my atrocious grammar. Thankfully, a horde of hand-me-down Enid Blytons saved my future - i got hooked on the Five Find Outers and Dog, Nancy Drew, Three Investigators, etc - and my English got better too. Those "please see me"s finally disapparated in Primary 6, and I even won second spot in a writing essay the next year when I was in high school.

At Dunman High, the Chinese teachers (except my mom! haha) who taught me were very unimaginative. They were traditional, and unexciting. They hardly aspired anyone to find out more about the language. In contrast, i had Alan Watkins, our crazy gwailou English lit teacher, who had an earring in his left ear, a deep jolly laugh, and a wicked sense of humour. A few of us were so inspired that we would stay back with him after school for our own "Dead poets society" kinda meetings. We studied poetry and texts that were not part of our curriculum. While my classmates were ploughing through "Much Ado about nothing" i was reading "Merchant of venice" and other Shakespeare originals. We studied literature so widely that during my GCE o levels, I was able to take on the additional poetry questions that the rest of my classmates weren't able to.

Meeting Alan Watkins was a watershed period for me. He showed me what being different was about, and that a genuine passion for something can lead one to do so much more. Since then, I took it upon myself to pursue subjects that i could only truly love.

But i digress, what i meant to say, was that i had gone, in a space of years, from a Chinese-speaking and reading 8 year old, to a teenager who was a lot more comfortable in English literature.

But the saving grace is that, no matter what, I have remained bilingual. My respect for the Chinese language and my ability to converse in it have stayed with me despite my nefarious affair with English. During my extended travels in China, i was able to conduct all my conversations purely in Chinese. Thought to be a local, I would get away with local prices and entrance fees. Muahaha. that truly came in handy.

Now, as a parent, I am also able to speak with Val in complete Chinese sentences if i so wish. It's good training for me. I have learnt many new Chinese terms in the past 2 years; oddly I have observed that my Chinese-speaking parents themselves are struggling to speak in complete Chinese sentences. The pervasiveness of English have corrupted their conversations; more often than not, my parents are the ones resorting to using English terms and not me. I am still trying to "de-bug" that, but it really shows how English has crept into everyone's lives.

I tell my parents that I would rather they speak great Chinese then attempt half-baked English. Let's take pride in our mother tongue, for goodness sake! I know many grandparents feel pressured to speak English to their grandkids because these kids simply don't respond to Chinese at all. It's a tough situation to be in. I am just glad that for now, we don't have that issue. And when the time comes for val to fall in love with English, I hope that his Chinese roots would have sunk deep enough to keep him in touch with one of the oldest languages on earth.

my growing boy

Photo captured using MoreLomo, a free iPhone app, that gives that cool lomo edge to all your blurry iphone pix! :-)

random sketches

On my right, I see half of the Singapore Flyer, still and stagnant, while a tiny helicopter whirs overhead. The dark clouds are looming, and the full length windows of the library gives a panoramic view of the city skyline. So many cranes in the far distance where the casino is being constructed - the scene is surreal and perilous looking, as a mothership-like structure straddles the three pillars, and six cranes perch on top, their arms raised up in salute. it is like they are building a giant ark in the sky, except that it's for Mammon and not God.

i have been enmeshing myself in the mobile tech world ever since i laid hands on the iPhone. The incredible ease of internet surfing, facebooking and tweeting has made more reluctant to power up a pc (it now seems to take forever to get it on, dial up the modem etc), when the phone is there. Except the battery sucks, literally.

The boy is speaking loads and making me laugh with his remarks. Every weekend is an intense mother-son bonding period, when he koala himself onto me, as if hungry for more mommy time. It can be sapping how much he takes from me but also satisfying. He now enjoys taking words from songs and mashing them up to make new ditties. I think he got that from me.

I don't like how the boy is growing up to like ALL the foods that i love. Mushrooms, fishballs, chicken wings, noodles. It just means that we will be fighting over our food in the future.

Is it obvious that this blog is all about distraction? I am supposed to get on with my book review of The Strategic Drucker and all i have been doing is reading up more and more about the old man (who should have been 100 if he didn't die 5 years ago), and not getting a start on the essay. Arggh.

how did 2009 pass me by?? (my life remembered)

and so it's gone. 2009. bye bye. how did 10 entire years slip by like that? what's there to show for the decade?

* lots more white hair
* lots of jiggly and highly loyal fats
* lots more lines on the face
* lots more stubborn freckles
* 9 credits of a Masters programme that's W.I.P
* a 2-year old whirlwind of a typhoon named Val

I was listening to a podcast by The Guardian - their last of the decade, entitled "the Noughties" and was suddenly compelled to think through each year that passed.

Here's what i remember of each year (upon writing it all, i then realised, SHIT! i did a lot! AND am so glad i did it, cos i am now on another journey of a totally different kind!)

1999 into 2000: I distinctly remember sitting on a boat in Inle Lake (Burma) with E & R, freezing our butts and noses off in the sub-zero (Yess! in Burma!) temperatures, hailing in the new millennium. Singing with Burmese boys and then narrowly escaping a crazy boy who was in love with R. Hilarious. We cycled furiously uphill, aided by a chivalrous Briton, while pursued by the madly infatuated Burmese man who tried v hard to snog R. He fell, got into a bloody mess, and we just left him there cos we were too terrified to help him. Next morning, he came and tried to win some sympathy points from R, offering to show his blood-stained shirt. PSFFFFFT! but yes, that was an epic 60 days i spent in Burma. learnt to speak Burmese and appreciate the wonderful grace of the Burmese people.

2000: joined CNA in February and began my 4-year career there. First major story: SQ006 Taipei crash. Too rookie to be sent to Taipei. could only look on with much envy. Volunteered to cover stories of victims' families. Spent many days solemnly attending funerals and memorials, getting the heart-felt stories, getting connected with families, and also crying my heart and eyes out while attending the funerals. esp. Subhash Anandan's brother's funeral, where i really quite lost it, having interviewed them extensively. *Sob* also had to cover a friend's brother's funeral. was chased away, and put in difficult position by a boss who didn't care if i was uenthical getting the story. This friend, who was very angry with me, later apologised to me some 5 years later when he saw me again. He said he later wished that he had allowed me to do a proper story of his pilot brother,how he died so heroically saving others.

2001: 9-11 of course. who can forget that? I remember sitting in the living room, watching this most surreal piece of breaking news on CNN. I texted my sis who was in a taxi, and then when the second plane crashed right into the WTC IN FRONT OF MY TWO ALREADY WIDE WIDE OPEN EYES, i really saw history unfolding right infront of me. the exhilaration. the amazement. the incredulity of the whole situation. epic.

oh, and i went to Tibet earlier in June for Raleigh's Operation Tashi Deleg, my second Singapore expedition (after Burma) and my third extensive community service trip.


2002: i went to Hawaii. the rest i can't remember. i was a surfer gal for six months. i learnt hawaii from a kumu hula who was an activist, using dance and hawaiian language to reclaim their lost culture, that was oppressed by missionaries who thought hawaiians were heathen. 'nuff said.

2003: strangely can't recall much of what happened here.

After some thinking, i remember that this was the year the navy ship collided into a huge container ship. I had my passport with me the day the crash happened, took off immediately for Bintan for reporting and stayed there for 6 days.

2004: watershed year. quit my job! had planned this for two years (after returning from hawaii). left without a job, much to colleagues' amazement. Felt the adrenalin rush of not knowing where the $ will come next. Finally dipped my toes into magazine writing - something I don't regret.

A simple 10-day trip to Cambodia with T had me falling, tumbling, hurtling into my Khmer affair. I went to Cambodia FIVE times in the space of 12 months - - as a tour guide for a friend's trekking business and the last time as the oldest participant of a YEP project. I visited Tuol Sleng and Killing Fields five times. Lived in villages countless times. Learnt to speak Khmer.

Capped off the year with a four-month trip from Yunnan to Laos, to Cambodia, and back to Singapore ending January 2005. Had one backpack with the entire time. V proud of it. Made good friends - my clients on the trips I led as a tour guide - and we're still in contact today.

2005: As Tsunami of Xmas 2004 hit, I was in Siem Reap, oblivious of what had happened. We had no internet in the vilage. Upon returning to Singapore, was roped into a flurry of post-tsunami volunteer work that took me to Nias, Medan for Raleigh recce work. Worked fulltime as a volunteer to coordinate things in Singapore. When the second earthquake hit, i remember that i was in Siem Reap (yes again) and people were texting me non-stop thinking i might be in Nias. All the places i had stayed in Nias were flattened. Kaput. Kerplazts. Ker-plunk.

Out of the blue, SIF offers me an assignment in East Timor starting in July 2005. I take it up, cos my parents didn't want me back in earthquake zone. So i left for war zone instead. Met two wonderful women - my UNICEF bosses- who will be inspiration for my life forever. Also met my husband there.

2006: In May 2006, just days before the first stint of my ten-month volunteer period was up, Timor fell into civil war. Bullets zinged overhead, tended to the wounded etc etc etc (it's all documented in this blog), and i was evacuated via a JICA ISOS plane back home. I returned in a month to take up a consultancy with UNICEF again. Saw first hand what it means to live in a displacement camp. heart breaks seeing children living in the open, susceptible to the elements, malnourished and ravaged by hungry mosquitoes. I grow up a lot.

2007: Became pregnant and had the unique experience of being preggers in a third world country. I appreciate that opportunity. It gave me plenty of insights into what it means to be pregnant in the two worlds i was straddling - the privileges that modern women have and what village women lack. suddenly the numbers oft cited for mortality rates made a lot of sense. I saw child survival in a totally different light - - as a mother, not as an aid worker.

returned to Sg Nov 2007 to await Val's delivery. Dec 2007 the typhoon arrives and i am stil being tossed about in his fury. Gosh.

2008: disappeared into the deep dark hole of motherhood. Will i ever find it? :-) perhaps only in blog entries and my scribblings in my journal. memories of sore nipples, breastfeeding at night, and lots of photo taking dominate my life.

2009: er... hello world. i finally begin working again full time at Tuber. another rollercoaster ride as i learn how to negotiate the corporate jungle as a custom publishing animal. ROAR!!!!! lots to learn, and also lots of "idealism" to put aside as i become the pragmatic mom who is now most concerned about earning a stable income for my son's varsity fees.

Dec 31, 2009: I watch the countdown on TV - it is muted as Val slumbers on our bed. I hear the faint boom, boom, boom of fireworks as they are set off to usher in the new year. i can't help but recall how similar they sounded to the boom, boom, boom of mortar firing off in the mountains of Dili in May 2006.


Happy New Year.

Tech dino LOVES this! Mobile Art Lab Combines iPhone and Children's Books

Mobile Art Lab Combines iPhone and Children's Books



It truly combines print (my first love) with the inevitable - interactive.digital.mobile stizzuf that's taking the world by storm. NICEEEEEEE.....
I like it so much! Trust a Jap company to be the brains behind it!

Would you drink raw milk?

Interesting issue. But I don't think Singapore's AVA would ever permit raw milk, not even if we have live cows here.
I told a friend looking for raw milk locally that raw human milk is available here and da best!

2 year old iphone addict: the tech dino mulls on the issue

Razor TV has two stories on the iphone craze, centred around a 2-year-old girl Inez who is apparently "addicted" to the phone. It's really exaggerated cos I don't see that she is an addict since she only spends an hour on it a day but okay our standards may differ.

Apart from the bad voice over (the reporter needs better voice training!), the stories do raise the issue of the extent to which parents should allow their kids access to the iPhone or any other kinds of tech gadgets. My cousin's kids were, for a while, hooked to the PSP - same difference. I think it's all about moderation, with everything we do. And realising that as parents, we have the moral responsibility to control what our children get to see, touch, hear, and say. The debate is not about the iPhone at all. It's about how much effort parents put in to communicate with their children, and whether we spend quality time with them, engaging them in their games. For me, the Ipod Touch or Iphone will always be a "good-to-have", but never a "must-have". More importantly, I crack my head each weekend to think of where to bring Val to instead of cracking my head over which new app to download. He asks for it occasionally, "Where's the ipooot?" (LOL) but is always easily distracted to do something else. And even when he plays on it, I am always watching over his shoulder, playing with him. That's the point of downloading those apps, and even wanting to develop my own kiddy apps for other children (that's a post for another day!).

Go the middle way, the tech dino says. While keeping up with techy stuff, make sure too that the kids sweat it out on the beach - I know of kids who think that sand is ickieee cos their parents say so! Help your kids get used to being in the sun. Too many children these days are kept away from the great outdoors. A few mossie bites are okay la! Slap on the bug repellent and traipse the trails. Catch some butterflies and tadpoles. If need be, bring the iphone to snap pix! Make a video of the trail. Even going to a playground beats being cooped up at home. Surf the net for great ideas from other parents. IMHO, if parents blame it all on the gadgets, it means they have been a bit lazy in trying to figure out what's exciting out there. We need to realise that gone are the days that staying at home means you're nurturing a bookworm. It means you could be bringing up a 宅男 or otaku!

Val turns 2!

Yeah, he turned 2 yesterday and all we did was to attend his school concert which, unfortunately coincided with it! But it was great seeing him in action on stage - he didn't fret, didn't cry, didn't run off stage, didn't do much either! haha, just shaking his bells, and his bum to "Lemon Tree" - he's been showing off his moves for about 2 months now at home, especially from the day we took a cab and heard the song on radio. I was quite a proud mommy, seeing my handsome little boy (with sparkly hair gel which i had a lot of trouble getting off!) behave so well, and looking absolutely charming. Took videos for Grandpa so had no time to snap pictures!

We celebrated his birthday on Saturday morning instead with a yummy cake from Choc.A.Bloc, which is just a few blocks away from our place. Auntie Connie and Uncle Max came along, tooting the party whistles, wearing cheerful party hats, and a huge helium-filled Thomas the Train balloon! Val promptly used it as a bunching bag, and sang his "不倒翁" song. Anyone knows what is 不倒翁 in English??? Then we finally gave him Auntie Shuhui's present, a Thomas the Train & Big Loader set, which he saw 2 weeks ago but i managed to persuade the good boy to be patient and only open it on his birthday. Set up the complicated tracks and all with Uncle Max's help and we were chugging along! It's also my first motorised train set, so i was quite thrilled seeing the trains deliver the ball bearings from place to place.

I got Val a Little Tike pedal/ push bike but that he saw 2 weeks ago, accidentally, as I had set it up while he was at school and hid it in a spare room. When i went into the room one day, he followed me, spotted the bike, and the rest is history....

After the cake and prezzies, we trooped down to Jacob Ballas Children's Garden when he had a swell time playing at the water feature, and then hugging calabashes and other fruits he saw at the garden. Got too hot to bear, and escaped to Plaza Singapura for lunch at Lao Beijing. Sumptuous, albeit, expensive lunch later (the tiny plate of pickles cost $5!!!), we got home and all snoozed.

That was it, another year's passed and my boy is growing older, more sensible, yet also more prone to tantrums! The terrible twos are officially upon us but i'm loving every moment - especially when he throws himself upon me and smother me with kisses.

Oh, and we deliberately did not celebrate his birthday in school last Friday. I've decided that there's no need to go OTT for birthdays. IF his bd falls on a weekday next year, we will celebrate in school, and might even do the whole goodie bag shebang. BUT, as long as it's not on a weekday, I will not succumb to the double-triple celebrations that some kids get. I can't afford it anyways, and since I grew up fine, without much fanfare on my bds, i shd think Val will be fine. I'll just wait for him to request for a celebration before thinking what's next. This seems like a straight forward opinion, but trust me, i spent DAYS pondering on this OKAY!

Lift Up(down)grading

So you are all familiar with LUP (Lift Upgrading Programme) on this lil red dot. Recently our block of flats joined in the frenzy (not that it was our choice) because, apparently, when the architects designed our block (which has 13 floors), they decided to let the lifts stop at ALL the levels, except Storey 13. Why? Beats me? Perhaps the technology then didn't allow it? Anyways, presumably in anticipation of the ageing population, and to make people on Storey 13 happy, upgrading came along.

Upgrading is a misnomer for us because no one - NO ONE - feels uplifted by the new lifts. They are s...l..o..w.., s..l..o..w..e..r... than the OLD lifts, so it takes forever for the lifts to come, especially when one was sealed off for works, leaving only one lift available for the entire block of residents. Not only are they slow, they no longer have those screens up above that tells you which floor the lift is at! Gasp! And... sometimes, when you press your floor, e.g. 8, and someone comes in, and press, say, 6, your floor number disappears but you're probably not aware, and then suddenly, 'bing' you realise, oh %^&&**, you're on the 11th floor and have missed your stop!. arggghh....

The frustration is clear...the sucky lifts have become the most popular conversation starter for all the residents here. Formerly, we would step in and step out, nary a smile or hello, but these days.........things are different! We have a common enemy - we all grouse in chorus about the sucky lifts - shake our heads in unison - and then let out sighs in symphony. Oh, our lives, damned by these lifts...oh how LUP has raised the quotient on social capital in our block. Perhaps, LUP does have some merits then?

Wait, and then we find out something from one of the PRC workers. They heard us venting as usual, and told us that the new lifts cost a third of the old lifts (Fujitec from Japan). AHHH....the truth emerges. We now know why LUP is really LDP.

But you know wat? I can deal with that. At least i now know WHY. It's the austerity drive, la. Economy not good so better bite the bullet too. I'm all for saving $, if the $ saved can benefit more people from having lifts that stop at their floors. All I ask is that whoever is sourcing these lifts make sure that they are SAFE for us. Yup, that's it. Nothing more. I can get myself to adapt to the slowness (I mean, we city rats do need to relax a tad!.

Just as long as those lifts never shudder and drop kerplunk into the shaft. Join me in prayer...

First magazine undertaking with Yulian

Some work from my past life with Unicef , in partnership with Yulian

Pro bono project with a colleague

Competition is great for the iphonetics!

Truly, the beauty of an open market for telcoms has presented itself gorgeously these couple of days. M1 certainly began it all with its "unbeatable" plans - truly, its plans were on all fronts stronger than incumbent Singtel's miserly ones. There was even a tariff to get Singtel's users to jump ship, offering them some cushioning for their penalty fees. In response, Singtel had an 11th hour update of its iphone plans late Tuesday night, in a desperate move to stop the migration - - overnight, current iphone Singtel users went from 50mb or 2gb data plans to 12 gb! how wonderful huh! And today, i've just found out that M1 has also upped its ante to match the 12gb offer, and the same price cap of $30 for data usage.

And guess what, Starhub, which had the lousiest plan (a cap of $48? come on!), has also followed suit to offer 12gb at $30 cap. Sweet is the sound of competition! WOOOOT! I say, go, competition, go!

An old post.............

An installation artist whom I had met 4 years ago recently emailed me that he had kept my old blog entry (from previous blog that I can't even remember the address to!) and is using it on his blog now.

Reading it, i think I had a lot more colour in my writing then. Sigh.


Traces of 'A Roomful of Old Ladies Clattering their Fingernails'
This was a blog entry by Bridgette See, a person whose kindness i can never forget.

PENCIL MARKS: 0055hrs, Feb 17, 2005

We saw him today, sitting in a glass display window along an underground walkway leading to an arts centre. No, to be accurate, sitting half in and half out of the display window. He looked like a technician employed to set up some lights for an advertiser. He was crouched over a small makeshift table, focused on a small object in his hands. J and I walked up to take a closer look. But first, our eyes were drawn to a gorgeous hanging display on his left.

It was a huge cluster of hanging pencils! Wooden pencils that had been sharpened and skinned with a paper cutter. The bodies of the pencils were exaggeratedly short, while the lead insides so long. They made up a pencil chandelier, hanging skinny and sharp.

So what was M doing? We peered and he looked up. 'Hi' 'Hi' 'Hi' we said in unison. He was sharpening pencils with an old school pencil sharpener, the type that has a handle you turn and make shavings that are all small and wiry. I asked him why he didn't use a newer type of sharpener. He pointed to a whole box of shavings. He's planning to scatter them (like sawdust) all over the floor of the window display. My first question was 'How many pencils are you going to use?" He shot back "Are you from Greenpeace?" J and I laughed. That was the furthest from my mind although I am a bit of a greenie. But after i assured him I wasn't about to tie myself outside his window display to protest against his raping of entire forests, he loosened up and began to talk.

This artist at work was M: he was born in India, raised in Dubai and has been in our city studying art for 5 years.

Apparently he had been commissioned by some guys to create an installation piece here after those guys saw his work at his arts school graduation show. So he's using about 2000 (!) pencils to create an art work, harnessing all parts of the pencils, from lead, to shavings to create installation art. Then he showed us another box of pencil shavings. These are the type you get when you use a new moden pencil sharpener. They have curvy edges and all, quite unlike the small wiry types. It was amazing the patterns he could create using a small beat-up sharpener. Some of the insides were star-shaped, some flower-shaped and even one that was square-shaped! All he did was apply different pressure at different points. WOW!

He had some more weird contraptions using little pencil nubs and all. I was so enthralled by his work. Suddenly I remembered that I had a pencil sharpener on me! (okok, dun ask me why i have one on me in the first place!) . I whipped it out enthusiastically and shoved it into his hands. 'Try this' i said. 'You'll love it'

M looked at the purple sharperner hesitantly. It's not everyday someone walks by and gives you a pencil sharpener, and a pretty slick one too! He put in a fresh pencil and began sharpening it, carefully and slowly - unsure of this new instrument. 'Shrccch' the first turn sounded so crisp he was startled. He paused and stared at my sharpener with new found respect. 'Wow, it's so sharp, the blade..." he continued again. 'Ah... it's almost orgasmic for me to hear that sharp crisp sound!' M exclaimed. I was delighted! Really, how many people can you cheer up in a day this way? This time, M unscrewed the sharpener, peered intensely at its inside, and said 'wow, it's even made of plastic. I can't believe...'

We laughed. I'm glad i've found another soul who is still full of wonder for life's little surprises. Many of my friends have lost that naivety. Instead, they often look at me in puzzlement when I squeal in delight over simple matters like being able to Skype or if i spot a funny cloud in the sky.

So J and I sat there chatting with M for almost 15 minutes, finding out the fate of different pencils. This chap's going to be around for another week. So J's going down on his off day on Friday to help him shave some pencils and snap some pictures of this cool dude. The brief encounter with M brought back fond memories of how me and my friends had helped out a bunch of installation artists at 5th Passage - an alternative art space in a shopping mall in the east of the city. This was 10 years ago but I can still remember the excitment as each installation piece evolved; the sheer thrill of seeing genius and creativity boiling over; the irresistible vibes in the air. It was a pity the alternative arts space closed down because it was way ahead of its time.

Thank you M for delighting my evening. i'll see you next week when I bring lunch for you and J. And my dear purple sharpener, I am so proud of YOU!

Snow+us=happiness

delighted!
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

Need we say more???!!!! Fake snow or not, it was splendid fun! Wear shoes that won't get ruined, bring a change of clothes, and plenty of good humour and imagination!

MEEEERRRRY CHRISTMASSSSS to ewessssss

Fire fire burning bright....

Although the Central Fire Station's open house (Sats, 9-1130) has been a regular feature for years now, it seems that many Singaporeans are still unaware of this wonderful (and free) place they can bring their kiddies to! As a reporter, I had the privilege of even climbing up the clock tower when the fire station's museum opened some years ago. I also covered quite a number of Civil Defence stories so it was nostalgic to see the vehicles like the Red Rhino (above) when we visited the Fire Station last Saturday.
Hop onto the Combined Platform Ladder (CPL) for a ride up high!
Vertigo! View from the top

GULP! He cried a lil when he first got on, and then was wordless, stunned to be up so high for the first time.

A really big truck for a really small boy.

Channelling his inner paramedic.

And the chaps who made it all possible! Cheerful, funny, and obliging firefighters who let us see their more light-hearted side. They joked around, and thrilled the kids with their fire pole descending stunts - even stopping to pose for pix midair!

Sleeping mum smothers baby on jet

Shocked to read the news below cos I b/f all the time in half-awake state! But i think this is really rare. Never heard of this before! but very sad indeed for the mommy, who must be a really deep sleeper or, i suspect, might have taken some kind of medication that knocked her out soundly. SAD!

But on the point of co-sleeping, there's still lots of debate raging over how safe it is for babies. I have been co-sleeping with Val from the time he was days old, cos i am a very light sleeper. Mothering Magazine has lots of resources on co-sleeping for anyone keen to learn more.


AP News:

Sleeping mum smothers baby on jet
She fell asleep while breast-feeding; doc on board failed to revive infant

LONDON: A breast-feeding mother accidentally smothered her four-week old child aboard a United Airlines flight from Washington DC to Kuwait, a British tabloid has reported.

The Sun newspaper said that the mother, who it said was a 29-year-old Egyptian-born woman, fell asleep as she breast-fed on the jet and awoke after about an hour to find that she had accidentally suffocated the baby.

Crew on the jet were alerted by the mother's screams and the flight, which was over the Atlantic, was diverted to Heathrow Airport for an immediate landing, the paper reported on Tuesday.

Scotland Yard confirmed that a United Airlines plane had been diverted to Heathrow after reports that a four-week-old girl was in distress. The incident occurred last Wednesday.

The police said in a statement that the baby was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. It added that an autopsy had been performed last Friday, but the results were still pending.

'The death is being treated as unexplained and the Child Abuse Investigation Team is investigating the circumstances,' the statement said.

Scotland Yard did not go into further detail, although Britain's Press Association news agency reported that such investigations were standard practice. No arrests have been made.

A police source told The Sun: 'This appears to be a tragic accident. The girl comes from a loving family. Her mum was going to Kuwait to show her to relatives.'

United Airlines spokesman Robin Urbanski said that a doctor aboard the flight tried unsuccessfully to revive the baby while the plane was still in the air.

The ground authorities later took over. Ms Urbanski said she had no information about what happened to the passenger after that, although the flight later proceeded to Kuwait.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned that sharing a bed or sleeping with an infant can be hazardous under certain conditions.

The British Association of Breastfeeding Mothers has said: 'Sitting up in bed while holding your baby is very dangerous, especially if you fall asleep.'