Nostagia & fun ride, Deaf Toa Payoh & YEP sub-team meeting

On the early afternoon of 9th Sept, we went cruising on a S'pore River bumboat. Little did I know I would enjoy the ride with Eeva. Did that same ride thingy before as a school-going kid, there was nothing much at that time. But the route and places have changed. Which was much more enjoyable!

There were new extensions all way till somewhere near Zouk, much to my surprise. There were also recent bridges built from 1991 to 1998 etc besides those historic bridges. Especially liked one of those recent bridges, it somewhat stood from the rest: Colourful!!!


Colourful Bridge!

We also saw the Merlion, Esplanade, Boat Quay, a long long big big dragon lantern displaying near the opposite side of Boat Quay, floating restaurant, former police headquarters with colourful windows!

It was so breezy and little wet with some water splashing on us in small choppy waves. The sky was so blue and cloudy. A perfect afternoon! Could see Eeva enjoying herself on that ride.

Later, we went to Takashimaya's mini Mid-Autumn festival, lots of mooncakes, delicious-looking food and beautiful lanterns everywhere. Eeva lamented that we shouldnt eat our lunch, we could eat food there instead! *grin*

Later, we met Cherylene and went to S'pore's first Deaf KFC store at Toa Payoh Express. Saw Alfred, Hui Shan and some other Deaf crew. Alfred was so busy that I couldnt even strike a chat with him.

After that, went to meet up with Ee Lee and her friend who brought Eeva and Cherylene to Chinatown for its so-called nice porridge and Boat Quay. Glad that Ee Lee helped me entertain her for the rest of the night while I had a meeting with my YEP sub-team otherwise I would be stuck. :)

Went thru the designs, price of the t-shirts etc. We were planning the sale of the T-shirts for raising funds for YEP 2004. It was a very long meeting coz some of us were slow in signing.. I must admit, there was really a limit to my patience... but I knew that I had to be patient for their sake. I know how it feels to be put down by others who cut short whoever is trying to say and sign at the same time.

Although it was a very long meeting, I enjoyed their company especially the hilarous Lay Hong... she always made me laugh every time we met. :)

Okie.. will continue summarising Eeva's subseqent days and other things in the next blog. Till then!

What I did today

Waiting for my hair to dry up... sleepy....

Ok, just now, had a 3rd badminaton session with Zach, Pet, Guo Cheng and others. Chye Soon and his colleague also joined in the fun (er... a little fun for myself lah, my right arm ended up being tired after all the play...)

Realised that I was still a beginner after all... Zach, Pet, Guo Cheng and Chye Soon coached me... They were so nice, so willing to teach me without my asking. They wanted me to play well! When will I become an expert like them?? Maybe a year or so... *my spirits dropping.. kidding! ;) *

Dont think I can really wham my racket that hard constantly like those expert guys.. didnt understand why they kept telling me to wham harder when I didnt want to do it, preferred to enjoy catching the shuttlecock with minimal strength. In that way, I would not have to extert so much strength till my arm was "dead". *my head shaking* Those guys liked to play compeitively even though my partner said it was a game.

Before that session, spent a whole day clearing mails and doing volunteer stuff...

Ok some of u may have read my previous entry and dying to know more about Eeva's trip here.

Let me summarise her 2nd day in the next blog.

New Vistor & A Few Concidences

Although I'm tired and sleepy, I'm waiting for my wet hair to be dried up. So decided to write here.

Last Wed, there were a few unexpected surprises. Was trying to settle on things that I have long put a hold on. Went to the bank to deposit some money, to my surprise I saw Peter there! And that bank was not a common one! Then realised that Peter's working one level upstairs. Cool... a small world...

Then I went to pick up a fren whom I befriended at WFD (World Federation of the Deaf) youth camp held in Canada last year. She's from Finland, and her name is Eeva Tupi. She's a nice and very independent person!

Before I went to meet Eeva, I also met Cherylene by chance! She was also arriving from Aussie! Another concidence...

Brought Eeva to my home and introduced a few local dishes (Rojak, Popiah, Hokkien Mee & Kway Teow) to her. She was not used to eating local food initially and learnt to use chopsticks. I must say, she's adventurous and willing to try anything!! Cool... Hmm, she was not used to the humid weather here too... but didnt expect her to adapt so quickly the next day!

See more details for the 2nd day of her trip here on the above entry...

S'pore Idol Special

Before I go to sleep (very sleepy already... Zzz... ), I want to record how I felt for today (yesterday)'s events otherwise I would forget what I wanted to say on some other time.

I had alot of inner thoughts which were happy ones. Most of them came from S'pore Idol Special ...

It was nice making friends with some deaf crew at KFC Toa Payoh Express... It had been a long time since I visited there. Kamisah was so friendly and fun. I also discovered her creative side, Jess asked her to help do 2 very nice decorations on those cardboards which were meant to give Lily our support! Wished that she could go with us to watch S'pore Idol special... she had to go to the hospital since her family member was sick.. :(

We were running late ... Jess was supposed to give out tickets to Lily's supporters.. we were there to support Lily at that show. Despite some glitches, we managed to get front seats... Zach was our intepreter for the night. Zach showed true professionalism which was a good thing... We managed to understand what was going on almost all the time. Thank you, Zach despite the fact that you didnt get to watch the whole show thru the whole night! *from the bottom of my heart*

There were some touching moments during the show... and there were some funny moments too... There were the classical singer from China, the eccentric pink bone-thin lady, the larger than life girl, the courageous guy whose dad passed away, Lily and Albert with a speech deft problem, that Careless Whisper guy..

Felt quite funny when the pink lady kept saying "Sorry I cant tell u, it's an secret" when Gurmit Singh asked her about some questions on her boyfriend. She even went to say that guys and boys went up to her... wah... but at the same time, i felt quite sorry for her.. she was so nervous that Gurmit actually had to go and help her sing on the stage... and she actually said "It's my first time receiving flowers! It must be from my boyfriend" when he gave her flowers... actually at first she told us that her bf was overseas! ah....

I admire that guy whose dad passed away recently, and had to pull out of the compeition despite being in the top 100 and receiving good praises from the judges for the sake of his family. He is now the breadwinner, trying to get the family thru bad times... Gurmit asked him why he came to the show, he replied that he wanted to put a smile on his dear almost teary-eyed mother who sat besides him. He sang to his heart's content as long as he could... as if he was singing for his only and one mother... and his mother was on the verge of crying... *pass me the hanky panky, no lah, i am not crying ok.. :p* just touched by his act........ I know it will be hard on him and his family but I believe they will pull through eventually.

My heart tugged again when I saw Lily being interviewed on TV (pre-recorded) and interviewed by Gurmit. Suddenly I felt I was so ashamed compared to her. We had a bit of misunderstanding very recently, and naturally I felt bad about it. I know some of u would say "we can't compare ourselves, we all are different".

But I couldn't help feeling like that, had just realised that she suffered alot just for her dream... a lot.... It also occurred that those people also have dreams... they all want to go for them just like Lily. I remember that one line "Dreams can wait"... they didnt mind waiting as long as they knew their dreams would be fulfiled eventually.... Way to go, Lily Goh and the rest! *applauds loudly* When I saw Lily song-signing and singing together with the rest, it was a touching scene (I know most pple might not feel the same way...).. Dunno why I felt it in this way... after all, it was once in their lifetime... Anyway I must thank Lily alot for this too-good-a-opportunity to witness those touching moments... and her singing for her dreams... hmm, she also looked sooo great! I remember Abby asking me to pass her 3 messages:-

1) You look so pretty!
2) Good performance!
3) I hope to see u more! (ha...)

As for Albert, didnt quite expect him to say something about Lily.. it made me giggle... haha.. I remember those mushy (yeah, to me..) lines "I admire her courage deeply with all my heart" "she has my 100% support!" *wondering* when will he start chasing her? ;) :p it seems that he has taken a liking to her... hmm..... nevertheless, I also admired him for having the courage to sing despite his problem.

That Careless Whisper guy is quite an interesting guy although he looked nerdy.. the reason why he sang that song so softy that the judges actually had to tilt their heads to listen to him sing was that he fell in love with a girl. He had no courage to tell her that he liked her... Aww.... so... he expressed himself thru that song!

After the show, I managed to chat with some good friends, Handoko, Lydia and Peter.. really a long time I never saw them... I was also happy that Abby was there.... I know she enjoyed the show alot.. she sms me alot on that night.. like myself, she admired Lily and the rest for their courage and the fact that we the Deaf people can do anything... I knew by then Abby and I will be better friends than b4... that's why I was happy....

Think I should really change the main title shown at the top of my blog... Ha....

Badminton and YEP meeting

Ahem... recovering from today's badminton session.. although I had good moments beating my friends with some cool partners, I had countless bad starts... sighs..

All of them tried to teach me how to make correct starts but I failed to please them.... :p Could sense their disappointment and resignation when I produced bad starts. Despite bad starts, I found that I improved in terms of catching the shutter ball from the opposite side! *beaming*

Hmm I hope that I can figure how to make a good start so that my friends will not be so exasperated with me when I play with them again.. Luckily, my dear sworn brother offered to help teach me how to do that correctly at his school this Sat! Yay! I hope I can do it after that!!

Yesterday evening, had a YEP meeting. Saw new faces again. I hope the YEP team will be finalised by 19th Sept coz faces kept changing at every meeting. Some withdrew, some new ones joined. *shaking my head*

And we are still looking for volunteers to join our team! What a headache... Last time, I emailed all the friends and just last week, I also sms them again.... Thank goodness, one of them has just confirmed going with us! Yay!

Anyway the YEP meeting was not too bad, had 2 games.. the first game was common.. Fire, Squirrels, Trees.. Think some of u know how to play that game... the 2nd game was harder and longer... lasted 50 mins! But there is an meaningful story behind it. How the 2nd game went:-

We were spilt into 2 teams of 9. Each team was supposed to stand on a straight line of chairs which means each person stood on his/her chair. 18 chairs + 1 empty chair at the centre of the line. Each team's objective is to move forward to that other team's chairs and vice versa. The rules were that only 1 person can move by 1 chair and one can use the empty chair... hmm what else...

Anyway we thought it was so easy at first but it turned out to be otherwise... we had to think think try try how to solve it.. actually when i stood back and observed a bit, i saw abit of the whole picture. some was in the "trying" group who experimented with chairs, some preferred to write alogrithms on white board, some wrote on pen and paper. others chose to be the players or observers. Interesting, I must say....

after some time, we finally came up with a solution.... shall not say out here in case u guys may play that same game the next time. ;) actually u learn something significant if u play this game.. we learnt peversance team work and cooperation. The faciliator, Serene mentioned that we didnt give up.. that's admirable. that's coz last time she played that game with her team, they failed coz they gave up... i realised that my team refused to give up, we believed that it was possible to solve it.

anyway we were told that we will have to go for a short camp at Pulau Ubin from 20th to 21st Nov... they will let us know the objectives of that camp later... I was like huh? Maybe I think the objective is to bond better with one another. hmm it's good also coz I never camp at PU before! *beaming with teeth exposed*

*dreaming.........*

An enjoyable day!

I really enjoyed myself today despite being so sticky, tired and sleepy!

But before those enjoyable moments, I was so pai seh over my action, felt as if I was so stupid!! Wanted to hide my face once I realised my mistake! Argh.... Okie, here it goes: I was supposed to go to ECP, so I decided to take a direct bus 401 from Bedok Interchange.

I proudly knew that I would go directly to ECP on that bus instead of Bus 197 (with the bus 197, have to walk some distance to ECP, very troublesome). So I happily waited for that 401 bus to come. Waited and waited. There was a Muslim family who also waited with me. That Auntie asked me whether that was a Bus 401 bus stop stand and I happily said yes. We had a look at that mini noticeboard, then waited. We didn't notice much.

Some time later, that Auntie suddenly asked me if it's 2pm, pointing at that board and I kept saying yes yes without realising the first bus will arrive only at 2pm!!! And the current time was 12.15pm! Then I realised my whole silly mistake after that puzzled Auntie asked the bus staff about the bus coming at 2pm. The staff said yes and advised them to take a bus 197. From that moment onwards, I sheepishly followed them, wanting to run away and hide because there were some people looking at us! I really felt like an idiot at that time. How could I never realise it despite looking at these times the bus come and leave!! Argh.....

Then I laughed at myself while being on the bus. Saw some ang-mohs and one of them looked like Eileen's Swedish friend. Wonder how he's doing in his native country... *wondering*

Anyway, I had to walk some distance to ECP after alighting. It was soooooo far and hot..... I went the wrong way, couldn't find the underpass... ended up walking till I reached MacDonalds... kinda wish I could just take that bus 401, couldn't understand why the first bus can only come after 2pm! Wah lau...

Upon reaching there, saw Cecilia, Lifang, Karter and Audrey. We decided to go inside Mac since it was so hot! Then we moved to another nearby restaurant. An interesting but awkard thing happened. Lily's friend (those who watched Lily on S'pore Idol, u should know that guy with the speech deft problem who was on S'pore Idol too.) came to join us!

I was like... I couldn't believe I was meeting him in person weeks just after seeing him on S'pore Idol! I asked Lily why he came because we were supposed to practise before our SARAH (old folks centre) performance and I felt it was kinda not nice to have him join us. We were like.. we had nothing to say to him.. Lily told him not to come but he insisted anyway. Anyway it was interesting, considering that they barely know each other.

We performed after some practices. Actually dunno how it went, someone told me our performance was good.. *thinking* was it good? hmm not too sure ... all I knew is that I felt as if I have never performed up there on the stage, in front of the audience! That was quite a good experience.

We hanged around at the carnival, seeing what food or desserts we can buy. Sadly there were no more goodie bags and ice-cream for us, actually we had free coupons out of courtesy of the SARAH organiser.

It was still so hot with the sun roasting us till we were tanned piggies (based on those roasted pigs from high class chinese restaurant ;p)

We parted our ways. Some went to Suntec City, some went for their IDD meeting. Some including myself went to Popular store near Parkway Parade (PP). Realising that they would be going to Pasir Ris, I decided to sms some friends to accompany me. I didn't want to go with them because I wanted to relive my childhood memories where I went to PP and Marine Parade area often as a young child. Besides it's a long time I window-shopped there.

PP and MP area have changed so much. Those shops I knew were gone and came in new and trendy shops. The old dear MP library has gone too with NTUC taking over that 2-storey building now. Anyway met an old poly classmate at NTUC. It was odd, before I entered NTUC building, I was thinking of her! That last time (that was so long time ago!) I met her across the road, leading to the closed MP library. Then I met her again at the same place! Deju vu...

Then I met my dear old friend, Abby. We went to PP, we chatted along the way. That was one of the wonderful conversations we ever have had in a long time. It was great understanding her all the time because she was starting to talk to me in sign language. For that fact, I was soooo glad! For about 3 years in poly, we had some hard time talking and writing.... Finally the day came... We agreed that we should go out more often.. actually we never went window-shopping together like that... I even told her that I look forward to conversing with her in sign language totally without my voicing out what I sign. I must really thank Abby for giving me a chance to enjoy myself for the rest of the evening. Thank you, Abby! :)

Can't wait to finish my assignment

Today is the deadline for the last assignment of a module... and I can't wait to complete it before I can focus on doing other things happily! Hee...

Perhaps, if I can manage to finish up early, I will go to some petrol stations to find out the brands of the car-wash detergents. In this way, I can seek the discount rate or an even better one: s p o n s o r s h i p! from companies selling these detergent.

Hmm, 11th Sept is something that we all remember... 4th anniversary of WTC tragedy... I am sure the newspapers will cover that one on this very day! At the same time, I look forward to performing something meaningful with my CS friends for SARAH old folks at East Coast Park.

And there's 1 more thing that I look forward to, that is playing badminton again with friends on next Monday. Despite the so painful aches on the right side of my neck, and arm that lasted till yesterday!

I actually had to endure that painful feeling on the right side again!! Had a tetanus immunisation a few weeks ago for the YEP trip. I thought it should not be painful right after being injected in my arm. Little did I know that my arm was so painful that I couldn't sleep for a night... I kept thinking "hurry up, heal quickly" to my arm and it healed after a few days. Ha, my right side is stronger than the other half!

Hmm ok.... time for me to rush assignment again! Ha... I am forever doing the same thing... :p

Slacking....

Hmm dunno why I started signing up for this blog again. Argh..

Perhaps I am feeling bored this lazy afternoon although I am supposed to study and complete the assignment due this Thursday. When I finished checking emails, I was supposed to start on assignment immediately but I didn't. :p Argh... I am doing it again! (I always do things at the last minute, that is what my Mum says every time)

Anyway, I went and read all the interesting stuff such as reading up on The Simple Life and their interesting socialite stars (but I didn't like their attitude towards work), then decided to read Alvan, Lily and Cherylene's blogs.. Alvan's entries are very witty, always make me laugh. The rest, I really feel glad to know what's out there in their daily lives. It made me think why not I have my own blog to let my friends know what's going on in my life.

So here I decide to try 1 more again to write. I might look back and read my previous entries and say "oooo that's me?? wah", realising how much I have changed. Hmmm....

Ah.. I feel better after writing...

Later in this evening, will be meeting up with some friends for a session of badminton, time for me to get into shape! Looking forward to it!

Okie, time for me to get back to my books.... Study Time! *berating my brain to study.... *