A very loooooong overdue blog about bintan and kl....

It's been one week since i came back from Bintan. Had a very long holiday - 3 days to kl and 3 days to bintan. It was a supercharged week, did lots and lots of shopping and many kinds of activities.

It was megasale in kl, i almost went shopping crazy over there (but have to think of budget). Found two gifts for hantaran (for both of us). I'm giving Dear a surprise, won't tell him until our wedding day. As for me, Anna Sui! Rite now, I'm quite fond of her products and packaging. Yipee, i got a whitening set for only RM$200, whereas in s'pore, the same set would cost ard $100+.

We went shopping in midvalley, klcc and times square within 12 hours. My feet was aching! We had a driver to chauffer us ard, so it saved us lots of time for shopping. AND the best part was I ate my favourite, Nando's. Was craving it for a long long time.

Finally, able to get my hands (or rather my mouth) on it. Yummy!

Bintan
I went Bintan with three other closest cuzzins. We stayed at Mana Mana beach resort. We tried snorkelling (a first for all of us), tradional javanese lulur massage, banana boat, mountain trekking (another first) and juz hangout at the beach.





Snorkelling was something that i wanted to try for awhile now. All of us were very eager to try. The dive master who brought us looked like Owen wilson - and yeah, has a sarcastic humour. Me and my other cousin was the first to 'go' down the boat, i was scared at first as i couldn't feel the seabed. Silly me! We both 'cling' on to the guy who brought us. Slowly, i pulled away from him and started snorkelling. I didn't even realised that I was swimming with the fishes (as my dear remarked, 'Suaku'). The fishes were colourful, and friendly. There were no soft corals that we could see. Only hard ones. Oh yeah, we saw 3 sea urchins too.

Dinner at Kelong restaurant

Breakfast, so much tempting food

The second day, we went mountain trekking at mount bintan. The whole trekking was something so unexpected. We were totally unprepared. The locals had brought ropes, walking sticks and haversacks, whereas us, juz our slingbags and water bottles. During the starting of the race, there were videocams, cameras. Apparently, the locals wanted to make it a yearly event and this year was the first. The four of us were placed at the starting point first. We were very enthusiastic at first, but as the trekking became harder and higher, i felt out of breath until i couldn't take it anymore. I stopped halfway and they had to send someone to 'rescue' me. I was passed from one person to another until I reached the finishing point. I realised that the locals were very friendly indeed. They would go all the way although i insisted i was fine.

The two who didn't complete the trekking

At Mayang Sari Spa

After trekking, we went for spa. The place was gorgeous. We had booked garden pavilion for our spa (it was an outdoor garden hut). Since we went at nite, there was no distraction from passerby and it was very cooling indeed. The waves were crashing nearby and frogs were croaking somewhere in our hut. We felt so relaxed, with tumeric scrub, yogurt and floral bath. All in all, it took us about 2hrs+. Ahhh, nice!

Third day was rest and relax. We went banana boating. We all thought it was very boring ride where we sat on a banana bouy thingy, and a boat would pull us around. We were wrong. We had to hold on for our dear life. We were shouting like crazy, i personally fell down twice. Mar lost her contacts. It was very exhilarating and funny situation.

The clear waters of south china sea

Infront of the guard post

My weak attempt of ballet

After three days of relaxing, we were back in sunny s'pore. I felt so sad that the trip has ended..another round trip to bintan next year, girls?

Currently been thinking about my current issues..what am i suppose to take?My lecturer was saying its wise to take issues that you could focus for Action Research...Aargh, so many things to talk, but which one?

Below are issues that i'm comtemplating:
1- Child abuse and negligence (i could talk about child exploitation and etc for AR)
2-Parenting styles and the effects on children (its a bit limited for AR)
3-Dual Income family (which i could talk about separation anxiety and working mothers)

Due date 11 sept..long way to go, I know, but alot of research to be done plus mountains of workload...when will it gonna end?



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Went to darlin's house yesterday to see my new nephew (future). His twin sis just gave birth last saturday. I was awed with the baby's presense. So fragile and small, so new to everything..I actually can't wait to have my own baby and wonder sometimes what he/she would look like...My biological clock is ticking...So many of my friends having 2 to 3 kids at my age...The pressure is mounting...







We had two days of centre closure on Thursday & Friday. Our management had organised a team building day at Sentosa. I was like thinking, what on earth are we going to do there? Play netball or volleyball? Frankly speaking, I'm not a sporty type of person. And we were kind of force to join the rest of the teachers from other centres. So unwillingly, we had to come to Sentosa not knowing what kind of actitivies we are gonna do.

Down at Sentosa, we were assigned to several activities of low and high elements. Low Elements are designed to get the participants to work as a team and be responsible for the safety of others as well as for themselves. These are great interaction and communication tools. High Elements are about 10 metres high above the ground and provide participants with opportunities to confront fears & examine how people react when they face intimidating challenges.

The teachers were divided into several teams of colours. Mine was purple (my fav colour), had barney (yes, that purple barney) for a team name, and we sort had to do cheers for team spirit. It goes something like this, B - Brilliant, A - Attitude, R - Resillient, N - Novelty, E - Excellent and Y - Yay, complete with the actions for each letters.

First activity was archery. I've been wanting to try this since god knows when. Two of my collegues managed to hit target on the board. Alas, I managed to hit the grass!

We then proceed to Trolley. The aim was to collect as many balls as possible. We had to coordinate well in order to proceed forward. It was tough coordinating together. At one point, we had to start again.

The aim of this game was to decode the 'password' and deactivate the 'bomb' using alphabets mats. The instructor was saying since we are teachers, we should know the sequence from a to z and z to a.

We went on to try balacing ourselves on a big platform and stay balance for at least 20 seconds. We tried a lot of strategies in order to stay balance but none worked. After 30 minutes, we could stay balance for only 10 seconds! Man it was tough!

Since young, I have always this fear of heights. But on that day, I was determined to overcome that. I tried one of the high elements activities, which required me to walk on a thin line 10 metres above ground. My only support was my own rope and the thick ropes which hanged about the length of my two arms spread apart. The climbing wasn't that scary. When I was on top, the wind was blowing quite strongly. I was determined to carry on no matter what. And before I know it, I had reached the end of the line. I was so relieved! It had occured to me that I was not scared of heights at all. Just the determination to carry on no matter how tough it gets. I was really glad I did that.

We tried two more activities and it was over. My arms and thighs were aching for few days. And I was really exhausted and hungry at the end of the day.

After this experience, I can't wait to try on more challenging activities. Till next year...

For pictures go to http://nurzzz.multiply.com/photos/album/16

Last Thursday was my fiance's birthday and I decided to bring him there for dinner as he wanted to try western food while for me, turkish food of course. I had this penchant for middle eastern food since I last went to Turkey, so my wish is to try as many middle eastern food as much as possible.

The Birthday Boy!

After dinner, posing time

Anyway, we ordered a set meal for him, it cost about $20 which consist of the main course (he ordered steak), two dips, soup, salad and dessert (i felt it's quite worth my money) and for me, turkish kofta. So the food came one at a time, including mine. As his was steak, it might take quite awhile. We waited for 45 minutes for his food and I had the feeling that something was not right. Called up the waiter and it turns out that he didn't take my fiance's order. He apologised profusely and the food came 15 minutes later. I was quite disappointed! We stayed there for almost 2 hours and by the time we left, I was hungry again.

We had a CNY celebration yesterday with the children. The non-chinese had to wear something red. Lucky me, I have lots of red clothes. While some of my chinese collegues wore white and its not even traditional clothing. I don't feel its fair since they expect us to wear something tradional for our own festival, while they themselves don't.

I have been having flu for the last few days, and yesterday was the worse. My eyes were watery, couldn't stop sneezing. Throat hurts like crazy. Almost didn't want to go to work, but my fiancee volunteered to fetch me and have breakfast together at Macs. Didn't really enjoyed the breakfast but so glad for the company.

Back to the celebrations, they (teachers & children) sang chinese song, got to eat Lao smt (smt that Chinese eat during reunion dinner) and chinese goodies. So much oranges were given.

The highlight of day was the steamboat lunch with the collegues. Since I can't eat seafood, I was the first 1 to sample the delights of steamboat. Mind you, I hardly find it fascinating eating steamboat. There were so much food, some included fishball, faked abalone, shirmp wanton, chicken meat, squid (my least fav), prawns and many more. While eating, 1 teacher 'promote ' to me to eat fishball with cheese. Happily, I took 1 and found it to be ok since I had a blocked nose and can't really taste anything. Then 1 teacher took the same fishball and told me that she could see squid on the same fishball that I took. I thought she was joking, but it turned to be true (I have this phobia about squid & octopus). It really spoiled my mood. Though I took alot of fingerfood, I still find myself hungry.

This weekend gonna be busy. Lots of things to do. Watching Fun with Dick & Jane today. Later...




Year 2005 was a rollercoster ride for me. Below are those that affect me one way or another.

1)I've completed my diploma on Pre-School Education
Tat 1 year course gave me lots of new friends, crazy friends, I would say...Hanging out at Cafe Galilee, picnic outings at Sentosa (we went there during CNY and personally I felt it was on the wrong day - the place was so crowded and there were like groups & groups of banglas everywhere, oh we had fun 'criticizing' them)

2)Change to a new working environment
After my previous company was sold to another management, it was time for me to find another job. The last few weeks before the handover was horrendous. The management was horrible towards me and my collegue. It was a very bad experience for me and I vow not to join this so-called award winning childcare.

3)My favourite child
His name is Justin and I miss him every single day. When he first join and he was my first child in my class, it was something that I think I could not handle. He was crying the whole day. It made me think did I choose the correct line? How can I handle a child the way he's been crying? But I persevered. Eventually he stopped crying by the 2nd month and he became more and more adorable as days passed by. When he was absent, I craved for his presence. I felt my class was quieter when he's not around.
On my last day of work, I didn't get to say goodbye to him. I was afraid I would cry infront of him as I had treat him like my own child.
Till now, I'm still in touch with his family. His whole family is one the nicest among those i've known.

4)Me and my boyfriend (soon to be my fiance)
We have taken 1 step further and that is, he had asked for my hand. There were many problems that we faced along the way as it involved our families. Though I can't reveal it, I can sense more problems in 2006.

My new year resolutions would be to save more money for my dream wedding, make more new friends and to take care of health.